Out of Sight
by FaxFiction
Summary: She wished she knew how to avoid that creepy-crawly feeling that plagued her on still nights – well, lately, all nights. She knew it was irrational, knew that there hadn't been any sign of danger in the past eight years since they crushed Itex like a cockroach, knew that her unfounded worry wore Fang thin. She just couldn't make it quit! T: language/violence (FAX) COMPLETE
1. Prologue

**OUT OF SIGHT - **A Maximum Ride Future-Fic, post-FANG

_Rated T for violence, language, and mild sexual content_

**Summary**

Eight years have passed since the Flock brought down Itexicon. It's been long enough that the quiet of safety finally feels normal. When Max slips back into paranoia, convinced she's being watched, Fang works hard to talk her out of it; they've all got battle scars, and he won't stand by and let hers rule her life. But when his family begins to disappear, Fang is forced to face old wounds to find all the missing pieces. Will he be able to let go in order to save the Flock? To save Max?

* * *

**Prologue**

_She was in the sky, high above the clouds, with the cold night air filling her lungs and her blood coursing wild through her veins. She didn't remember taking off, but it didn't matter. There was just flight, and freedom, and she really felt she could fly free forever. Wind whistled through her feathers as she shot through the atmosphere like a rocket, streaking over the mountains outside Denver at inhuman speeds, over the lakes and the trees and high enough that she couldn't make out the details below her. She was alone, but not lonely, and she knew as soon as that changed, she'd just turn around and go home to Fang. He'd be warm under the covers and he'd groan when she wedged her ice cube toes between his, but then he'd pull her close and kiss her warm._

_She closed her eyes and grinned into the rushing wind stream until her teeth were numb and then peeked up at the stars, wings stilling for a beat and a half. They were nothing short of brilliant. A lacy wash of glittering pinpricks rippled across an inky canvas, illuminating the deepness of the night and nothing else. Her lips parted at the sheer, unadulterated beauty of it. Her stomach sunk to her toes, the magnitude of the expanse of the sky curling like a fist around her heart, and she felt like the smallest giant there ever was._

_Something washed over her right wingtip just then, some wisp of a shadow. The tightness in her gut twisted into a flash of panic and Max pulled up with a great beat of her tawny wings, whipping around in the air to hover with heavy flaps and a heaving chest._

_There was nothing there._

_She let out a breathy laugh, rolling her eyes at the boogeyman scare. She was a few thousand feet above ground, too high even for owls and bats. Of course she was alone. She hitched her shoulders and flexed her wings, tilting into a gentle descent back towards the city. She told herself she wasn't running, not really, she was just tired and ready to go home._

_And then the shadow dragged over her left wing, standing her feathers on end, and she found herself beating her wings against the air just to get home faster. She could see her little apartment from here, and through the window, her husband sprawled across the bed. But the harder she flapped, the further away he looked and the further she felt from him. The knot in her stomach forced its way up into her lungs and she wanted to scream. The shadow became Shadows that scraped sticky tendrils of terror across her wings, down her back, locking her joints and making her fall into a tailspin. Her wings still flapped but they were useless, dragging through the air like a sieve full of sand, and when Max looked up from the dizzying rush of the ground coming to meet her, she saw that the stars had turned away from the sky and were_looking_at her, silver glitter eyes whispering death._

Max was just short of crying out when she woke, light-headed from panting and blinking unseeingly in her dark bedroom. She shivered and felt something rough before placing it as Fang's stubbly chin digging into her shoulder blade. His spicy hot breath made the back of her neck sweat, sticky and uncomfortable and exactly what she needed to come back down from the nightmare.

She took one belly-deep, shuddering breath and took hold of Fang's wrists where they were crossed loosely in front of her stomach to pull his arms tighter around her. He hummed deeply in his sleep and curled around her trembling body with a sigh, locking her in. She felt her heart calm as the dream faded, skittering off into the edges of her memory where she knew she probably wouldn't remember in the morning. The moonlight was cool, Fang's arms were warm, and she fell back asleep to the rush of the wind against the window and the faint scuffling of bat wings in the dark.

* * *

**Author's Note**

Can I just start by saying that I am so, so so so excited to share this with you? I've been excited since I had this little brainchild back in December. It all started with the idea to write a teensy little one-shot in which Dylan shows up to apologize to Fang and Max for the way he behaved when he first met them. I scribbled it out on notebook paper at work when the idea grew too big to keep in my head, and then it dug its little hooks into my brain and begged to be made into something bigger. That little one-shot is now the second chapter of the 25 I have planned. It's an alternate universe mystery/action/adventure story, set 8 years after "Fang" in the original series if you just ignore the crummy second epilogue when Fang leaves Max. Fang never left, Dylan went MIA, everyone moved on. Well...almost everyone. Bwahahaha.

This is the most complicated story I've written, which maybe isn't saying much considering my only other chapter story was a novella-length romance, but know that the amount of planning that's happened has not been insignificant. I've been working hard on this sucker since before Christmas, plotting it out meticulously, making sure I'm dropping solid clues and holding up continuity while keeping it interesting and suspenseful and throwing in a heavy handful of action scenes that I've decided are now my favorites to write. Every single chapter is integral for where the story goes next, filled with hints and important events and foreshadowing. I'm really hopeful that it reads as well as it played out in my head.

I want to hugely thank my beta-reader, the lovely **KLoves2Read,** for trudging through everything ahead of you, whether it was just half-baked or almost there. She's kept my writing focused and driven and without her input, this poor story would be a heckuva lot more confusing. Thank you for being such a fantastic writing partner!

I also want to thank everyone who's read _any_ of my stories so far, especially those of you who took the time to review. Your words are the most wonderful reward for all the work I've put into my writing (I seriously go back and reread your notes like, all the time. _All_ the time), and they're truly the main reason my author account expanded past that first raunchy one-shot. An extra thank you to the stragglers who've read my stories after they were complete and still took the time to leave a note behind. Each one has brightened my day. 3 I'm really hopeful that you'll love this, too, even if it doesn't follow the trend of most of my other stories. I am looking forward to hearing your thoughts, your questions, what you hope is going to happen, what you hope doesn't happen. All of it.

As I said, the story will have at least 25 chapters, and here's the awesome part: **20** of them are already written! This means you, dear reader, will get a steady stream of regular updates 2-3 times a week until the story comes to a close at the end of April. So subscribe and review, my friend, because we're only just beginning.

First chapter will go up on Monday!


	2. Chapter 1 - The Party

**Author's Note**

I had to fight with myself not to post this early. I'm so ready to share it, but I'm afraid of posting too much too quick, because the end _isn't_ written yet. This is the weirdly terrifying about posting a planned-but-not-100%-written story, especially a mystery with clues - because what if I post a chapter, and then when I'm writing something later on down the line I need to back-edit something that I've already posted for continuity or a clue? Eeep! Updates will speed up as I get more chapters written, I'm sure, but I'm not there yet.

Anyways, I'm humbled and flattered and so excited that the reviews I've received are from familiar names. Like I have 'dedicated readers' or something, which feels like a big deal. Thank you, all of you, for being interested in my brain-child just because it's mine. I hope I can convince a few more of you to get hooked along the way. Especially as this is a solid 'T' story throughout, so it should work for a wider audience.

Replies to my beautiful reviewers at the end.

Okay, enough of that - read on!

* * *

**CHAPTER 1 - THE PARTY**

Fang jimmied the key in the flimsy, tarnished lock. His other hand jiggled the doorknob at just the right angle as he shrugged his shoulder to his ear to keep his work-heavy laptop bag from slipping off his arm. _Really gotta get this lock fixed..._

The deadbolt finally shifted with a heavy click and Fang slouched into the modest apartment he and Max had shared since they got married four years ago, at the ripe-old age of 20. Which, to be fair, was pretty ancient in bird-kid years. Besides five years of dating, they'd lived through more pain and suffering than most adults did in a lifetime, _before_ they dealt the final blows to Itex.

Fang hooked his keys on the wall and spotted his wife hunched over on the couch, elbows on her skinny knees and face in her hands, watching the television intently.

-_illionaire Hayato Tanaki is finalizing the acquisition of ASIX Shoe Manufacturing under the Genitex La-_

Fang frowned towards her. "You've been watching a lot of news lately. Watching for something in particular?"

_\- across Japan. In a country where even the smallest islands are protected land, efficient use of av-_

She muted the TV with a glance at Fang before fixing again on the images flickering behind the yellow news scroll. "Hmm? Oh, no, I just... Just looking." She chewed on her lip thoughtfully, the corners of her eyes tightening. "Something just..._feels different._ Maybe I'm going crazy."

Fang smirked as he walked into the kitchen, calling behind him, "The quiet life is messing with your brain, Max." He pushed his laptop bag onto the counter between the plastic bags full of chips and soda. "Ready for the party?"

"Yup!" Max appeared in the doorway with glittering eyes. She tickled her fingers along Fang's spine as she came up next to him at the counter. "We're all set. Angel and Gazzy are almost here, and Nudge said she'd stop to pick up napkins and plates so that we're not forced to be _complete_ barbarians." She lined up the 2-liter sodas next to the sink, pausing to lean into a kiss on her cheek before Fang disappeared into the bedroom to change into something less professional.

Someone rapped on the door and Max was halfway there in two seconds. "I got it!" she called to Fang and hurried to open the door. Iggy and Ella stood in the hallway holding a backpack that Max seriously hoped held the ice they promised to pick up.

"Happy birthday, Max!" Iggy grinned crookedly and followed Ella inside with one hand on the small of her back.

"Happy birthday, Iggy," Max grinned, letting the door fall shut behind him. "You too, Ella," she winked. "Ready for your first Birthday Party?" Ella grinned like a Cheshire Cat, thrilled to be included in the Flock's yearly excuse for a celebration.

It wasn't much longer before Angel and Gazzy appeared on the doorstep, followed closely by Nudge. Max had to stand on her tiptoes to smooth down the Gasman's stubborn cowlick, hands braced on his broadening shoulders.

"Thanks, _mom._"

"Anytime," she chirped. She pinched his cheek and he pulled away with a grimace. "How're classes? How's dorm life? How's eighteen treating you?"

"Boring, awesome, same as what came before it," he said lightly and then perked up. "Hey, I know this song! ..._gunpowder,gelatin, dynamite with a laser beam..."_

Fang walked into the living room. "It's on our old iPod. Found it in a box. It's got all our old playlists."

"What? I didn't know we still had that thing." Nudge snagged a handful of tortilla chips and leaned against the counter in the open kitchen. "Kind of amazing, really, when you think about everything it went through with us. Eraser fights, campouts, evil scientists, clones... Apple really knows how to make 'em, huh?" She piled her chip with salsa and crunched into it with a satisfied smile.

Ella pinched Iggy's arm and laughed. "I'm more surprised Iggy and the Gasman didn't use it for bomb parts. How on earth did you manage that?"

Iggy smiled down at her until they were nose to nose. "I only blow up useless things."

"Like Max's alarm clocks," Gazzy offered.

"Like Max's alarm clocks," Iggy agreed. "Never something as glorious as a handheld jukebox."

"Hey!" Max protested loudly but settled for a disapproving smirk. Angel ignored them, waltzing to the center of the room and sitting down nimbly in the center, pulling her legs under her by the ankles.

"Let's do presents! Then maybe we can go for a fly."

"And a swim." Max grinned and glanced at Fang, remembering the _last_ few times they made it out to the lake. He shot her a dark smirk and winkled so quickly she almost missed it.

The Flock managed to sit still long enough to embarrass each other with incredibly personal gifts – Nudge bestowed a red lacey something to Max (who handed it to Fang, still hidden safely in the gift bag, so he could peek inside before thanking Nudge coolly), Angel had picked out "How to Choose a Major for Dummies" for Gazzy ('Hardee-har-har, Ange. Just because you're the youngest kid in the doctorate program-'), Iggy became the proud owner of a super-sized box of condoms (and an effusive grin when Max punched Fang in the arm, 'Really, Fang? Really?' 'He's blind, not dysfunctional-ow, hey!') – before inhaling cake and taking turns in the single bathroom to throw on bathing gear.

Max changed first and pretended to clean up some of the party trash while she waited for the others. She'd shoved all the chip crumbs into a line near the sink by the time Gazzy came into the kitchen, bare-chested and carrying an armful of open chip bags that he dumped across the counter.

Max narrowed her eyes at the spilling chips before focusing on Gazzy's swim trunks. His _revealingly_ _tight_ swim trunks. His ears tinged pink when he noticed her gaze, turning towards the counter to sweep golden crumbs into his waiting palm.

"It's in style, Max. You don't have to look at me like that."

"Uh huh." Max raised an eyebrow skeptically, drumming her fingers on the countertop until Gazzy met her eyes again. "You know, Fang and Iggy were about your age when they started bulking up."

The Gasman's flush deepened and he mumbled, "I'm not. I don't even have my next ability yet."

"Ability?" She creased her brow in thought. "Mm, you're right, we were eighteen-ish when Iggy went all bat-ears and Fang ninja-ed up."

"I'm a ninja?" Fang materialized out of thin air when he whispered against Max's neck. She could have sworn she felt her heart stop when she whipped around and whacked the heel of her hand on the cabinetry with a hissed curse.

"The hell, Fang?" Max rubbed at her hand with her thumb, wincing when the numbness went away, leaving pins and needles in its wake. "Gazzer, quit laughing! Go borrow some swim trunks that _don't_ show off your dingleberries."

That shut him up. His ears were fiery red as he followed Fang back to the bedroom, head bowed in shame. Angel flounced past them in her electric blue cover-up, giggling like mad. She bounded towards Max and leaned over the counter on the heels of her palms, grinning. "Want some help?"

Max smiled and tossed her an empty garbage bag to hold. "Would I ever say no?"

The flight over to Cheesman Lake was one Max and Fang had taken dozens of times on their own, but having the Flock with them made it feel more like home than ever. Grungy metropolis faded into rolling green forest and rocky hill beneath them. The vermilion sun glinted off a slithering body of water that stretched out in the distance, cradled in a rocky valley and beautifully deserted at the south end.

Nudge closed her eyes blissfully in the nippy air before darting up to fly next to Max.

"Twenty-two feels the same as twenty-one. I don't think I've ever felt different after a birthday party."

Max side-eyed Nudge and grinned, raising her voice to compete with the wind, "Maybe because we never have them on our real birthdays."

Nudge clucked her tongue and pointed at Max with a conspiratorial wiggle of her eyebrows before continuing, "Sometimes it's weird, the things that make me feel older. Like the weddings – ohmigosh, so many weddings! Chelsea and Brad last year, and then Emily and Tim three months later, and just last week I was a bridesmaid for Jessie and David. And I _know_ the dress was ridiculous, don't give me that look, but I swear I was the happiest bird kid ever dressed in all that poufy tulle and taffeta. Even if it _was_ chartreuse, which is such a bad color on me, don't even get me started."

Max just smiled, letting her happiness swell and soak into the very marrow of her bones. She and Fang had a pretty good thing going, but being with the Flock was still _home._ They could do anything when they were together and she knew it would be alright in the end.

She half-listened to Nudge go on as the Flock took big, wheeling turns in the twilight sky. They dropped closer and closer towards the lake until they were low enough that Iggy let Ella fall from his arms in a graceful dive before tucking his knees and dropping out of the sky with a savage whoop, followed closely by most of the Flock. Max fluttered behind Nudge to settle on the rocky shore, enjoying her company enough to let her keep talking for a while.

"I'm so glad you married Fang," Nudge gushed as she plopped down on the bank of the cliffy outcropping.

Max's smiling eyes were fixed on the rest of the Flock as they splashed and shrieked through the silvery water, but her ears perked up at the mention of Fang.

"Sam was such a dweeb, no offense, and marrying Dylan was _clearly_ a terrible option. It would have led to, like, the world's worst daddy-in-law relationship ever."

Max made a face. _That's_ what concerned Nudge about Dylan? Not, like, his pushy inability to take 'no' for an answer, or the fact that he had technically been an infant? His mad-scientist creator-slash-father? "You mean Dr. Haagen-Dazs?"

"Yeah! Gunther-Hagen's fixation on Dylan was seriously unhealthy. I mean, he actually tried to _kill_ Fang because he wanted Dylan to have you. That's messed up."

Max rolled her eyes. "It had more to do with the 'Immortal Blood' junk he believed than anything else. And he _did_ kill him."

Nudge nodded fervently. "But with Fang, you don't have to deal with any of that. He's daddy-free!"

"I..._guess_ that's a perk? Unless you count all the psychopathic scientists claiming to be the "father" of the avian project."

"Ugh," Nudge screwed up her face, "Can you imagine? You got off lucky. I mean, Jeb's a jerk, but he's still the reason we're alive, probably. What if, like, ter Borcht or that Janssen Director bitch were really our parents? At least your dad got us out of the School, even if he did double-cross us like five different times."

Max grunted in disgust, leaning all the way back against the pebbly beach and scratching her bare belly. "I don't even want to think about it. I'm just glad the CSM keeps tabs on them, so we don't have to."

Nudge sat up and flapped her wings lightly, reshuffling her feathers against her back and tugging out the wrinkles in her brightly-striped bathing cover-up. She turned to rest her cheek on her drawn-up knees and wiggled her eyebrows at Max. "We've got enough resources now that if any of 'em even starts to think about cross-breeding _daisies_, we'll be able to shut 'em down. I know you're busy up in operations, I mean, I'm your _sister_and I don't see you most days, but you should seriously come check out the surveillance sometime. All the Ex-Itex crazies couldn't even make a Puget Square in a crossword puzzle without us knowing."

"Yeah," Max breathed, pulling her lip between her teeth.

Nudge turned her face to squint at the moon. They could almost hear the crickets above the shouts that carried across the water. Several peaceful minutes passed before she sighed heavily.

"I wonder what happened to that guy, anyway."

Max looked down her chin at Nudge's hunched shoulders. "Who, ter Borcht?"

"Dylan," she whispered. "His life was kind of set up to suck. I wonder if it got better."

Max shuddered, remembering how dull and cold his sea-blue eyes had looked when he plunged the death-needle into his arm in Dr. Hans' lab. His suicide attempt had ultimately failed, but he'd still _done it._ He'd hung around for a week or two, hung all over Max and riled Fang up. They blamed it on whatever drug he'd shot up with, but it didn't make it better. And the morning after the dog wedding, he just...wasn't there.

She wondered if it got better, too.

She sat up with a clatter of pebbles and shot Nudge a forced smile. "I'm gonna get in the water. Wanna come?"

Nudge pulled back, looking affronted, "And get my _hair_wet? No way, lady. But, hey, send Ella my way s'il vous plait? I've got to tell her all about the wedding!"

Max was already in up to her knees, but she ticked a finger above her head in farewell and dutifully made her way over to Ella. She got halfway through her message before Gazzy cannonballed not two feet behind her, effectively distracting her from everything but revenge.

Iggy let Ella twist from his arms with a kiss high on her cheekbone. He listened to her go until she was almost to Nudge before turning back to Fang.

"Sooo, how's work? Everything still good at _National_?" he asked, trailing his long, pale fingers across the surface of the water.

Fang shrugged, watching the smooth ripples expand from under Iggy's touch. "It's alright. My new boss is a complete hardass, though."

"You mean Dayburn?" Max called over her shoulder and shrieked when Angel grabbed her by the leg and dragged her underwater.

"Yeah. Marty. Whatever. He's only been around a month and a half and he's already replaced half of my assignments. Some of my long-term projects, even. I'm supposed to be in Nagasaki right now, but I told him 'no' because of the Birthday Party."

"Good for you, bro," Iggy tipped his chin in approval. "Sucks to have to work with someone who doesn't respect your work."

"Yeah, what did you say he said the other day?" Max shouted over Angel's head before taking her shoulders and dunking her. Fighting to keep Angel under, she screwed her face up and spoke in a ridiculous New York accent, "_Gotta look out for yourself, Ride, 'cause no one else will._"

Iggy pulled his lip back in a sneer. "What a jackass."

"Mmm." Fang shrugged. He didn't really want to talk about it anymore. "What about you? Still enjoying work?"

Iggy slipped into an easy grin. "Same as ever. Haven't met a bomb I couldn't beat yet. And Ella's way happier, now that I've got an actual team to work with. She says she worries less now." His grin softened and he turned his face towards where she and Nudge sat on the rocky bank, digging their toes through the muddy water and giggling like tweens. "I really love that girl."

Fang hummed intently. "You guys are pretty serious."

Iggy sighed and ran both his hands through his damp hair, leaving pale valleys across the unruly mess covering his scalp. "I guess so. It's not like how Max needs you, you know? We didn't grow up depending on each other for life or death. She had this whole other life before I came around: she doesn't need me. But, bro..." He shook his head incredulously with a grin that could've lit a football stadium. "She _wants_ me."

Fang chuckled and gave Iggy's shoulder a squeeze. "Well, she hasn't kicked you out yet, anyway."

Iggy scoffed and swept a spray of water up into Fang's face. Fang punched him in the arm. Iggy leapt on top of him with a wild battle-cry and the two disappeared beneath the surface. Thirty seconds later, Iggy shot up, gasping and backtracking drunkenly, "Okay, okay! Uncle, _geez!_"

Fang rose out of the water with an unholy grin, watching Iggy shake out his feathers and smooth his shaggy hair away from his face. His grin slipped into something softer when he saw Gazzy and Angel tag-team Max over by the shore with a high-five and a whirlwind of limbs before they all three fell into the water. "She doesn't need me. She's _Max."_

Iggy's eyebrows wiggled sagely. "You can say that all you want, Fang, but it's just not true. Maybe she was too badass to need a knight to rescue her from the evil geneticists, but she always needed you just as much as you needed her."

"You think?" He glanced at his best friend skeptically, but felt a small smile tug at his lips.

Iggy snorted rudely. "I know I can't see, but I'm not _blind,_bro_._ How else do you think you got her to marry you?"

Fang started wading towards the shore where the rest of the Flock had gathered. "My impeccable socialization skills? The irresistible combination of my skinny bird-kid ass and my knowledge of Doctor Who?"

Iggy sniggered happily and powered through the water after Fang. "Yup. Definitely those things."

"Knew it," he shot back with a grin. He cupped his hands around his jaw and called ahead to Max, "Ready to fly home?"

* * *

**Replies to those who've reviewed!**

**thestupidgenius1123,** you commented quicker than I could come off the nervous high of posting a new story. Sheesh. I love your rambling comments and I'm looking forward to more of them (whenever you have the time - I'm not pushy, just eager!). As far as well-written Fax goes, I agree with you on all points. DesperatelyObvious had me hooked early on, as did you. You guys were the ones who convinced me there was stuff worth reading on the MR section of . And I've read most of FallenArkAngel's stuff, but it's /so/ so dark that I can't just sit and binge read it like I do with other authors. Way too depressing for me. I like happy-sexy-funtimes Max and Fang, personally, so I try to write them that way. I've probs been influenced by you more than I think, honestly, haha. And I'm very excited about the one-shot-turned-story chapter, I'm really fond of it, so I'm excited that you're excited, too. It's only chapter two, anyway, so you'll have it this week!

**pancakes-for-you, **yay! I'm glad you're still hanging on, and I really hope you like where I go with this story. I know I've already said it, but I am really excited about it.

**Nola96, **thanks for the warm welcome, haha. The rest of the story is mostly not as poetic - it's an action/adventure, after all. But Max's dream was a great place to play with words, and it works well to set the tone for the rest of the fic.

**KLoves2Read, **thank you for doing some of the behind-the-scenes work with me. =) This story seriously wouldn't be as solid without your input. You are an awesome cheerleader and beta, and I think I shall keep you.


	3. Chapter 2 - CSM Social

**Author's Note: **A couple of you are nervous about Dylan. Don't go running yet: I am not writing a love triangle! That's not what this story is about, and I don't even go there. Not once. Cross my heart and hope to fly. (Is that too cheesy?) I love Fax, they're my OTP or whatever, and Fang and Max certainly have enough of their own angst without having a third party stir the pot.

And I get it, Dylan's usually very unlikeable - the kind of character you love to hate. Me, too. That said, I hope you'll let me change your mind about Dylan, at least for the duration of this story. As you're about to read, he's going to try to make amends. Try to let him? For me?

Responses to my lovely reviewers are at the end, because I want to conversate with each one of you. But for now, here's the mutant child of the oneshot that started it all. Major thanks to **KLoves2Read** for doing the beta-reading and helping me focus the dialogue and ramp up the Max-and-Fang-ness.**  
**

* * *

**CHAPTER 2 - CSM SOCIAL**

Max's bright brown eyes were fixed on his clean-shaven Adam's apple bob as she straightened his tie. "Just a couple of hours, then we can go be homebodies again."

"Hmm." Fang smirked down at her. "I'll be fine. I know a few of these people."

"I just never know, it's been so long since you worked for the CSM, you know?" She glanced through the door-stopped entrance to the ballroom. "I think I see Brigid over there with David, and I saw Stacey earlier, and I'm sure Mom is here somewh-"

Fang leaned in to capture the rest of her thought with soft lips, reminding her that he could handle himself.

_And,_ he hoped, _reminding her how great it was to be homebodies._

She pulled back with a playful snarl. "No fair distracting me that way!" She held his twinkling gaze for half a minute, lips pressed into a determined, puckered frown, before she sighed and gave in. "You'll be fine. I'm gonna go make sure I talk to the important faces, keep my bosses happy. Find you later?"

"Good plan." He dipped down for just one more kiss, squeezed her hand, and watched her move off into the dimly lit room in her black cocktail dress. Her tawny wings were folded gently behind her, tucked just so. Now that they didn't have to worry about their wings showing, Max consented to wearing dresses more often, and he wasn't complaining. He followed the line from the tips of her primaries right down her curves to watch her swaying on those red stilettos that he _loved_before she turned and disappeared between the partygoers. He took a second to resettle himself, tugging at his tie uncomfortably before heading into the sizeable crowd. He found Brigid and her husband pretty quickly, right in the middle of everyone, and tipped a nod when David saw him first.

"Pays to be a head taller than everyone else, huh?" David smiled genially when Fang approached them, his skinny arm draped casually around Brigid's swollen waist.

Brigid gave Fang a little wave and smiled kindly. "Is Max here? How's she doing?"

Fang gave the room a cursory scan. "She's around here somewhere."

David laughed good-naturedly and tapped Fang's arm with his fist. "Left you to fend for yourself, huh? These strong CSM women don't need us around." He laughed again when Brigid glared up at him with a playful gleam in her eye. He leaned towards Fang conspiratorially and hissed, "Just make sure you tread lightly when they're preggers - ow!" He rubbed exaggeratedly at his chest where Brigid had back-handed him.

"Have you and Max talked about having kids?" Brigid asked and Fang felt the tips of his ears go red.

David looked at Brigid incredulously, flushing with embarrassment for Fang. "Really, Bri?"

She ignored him, waiting patiently for Fang to stop catching flies.

"Uh...no," he got out, feeling jittery under Brigid's expectant gaze as she waited for him to elaborate. "She's kept busy with the CSM, and I've got _National_ and the blog. And everything still feels too close to Itex," he blurted, thinking of how on-edge Max had been for the two weeks since the birthday party, feeling like they were being watched. "It's not a good time."

Brigid smiled knowingly and gave Fang a look. "It's been almost a decade since you guys crushed Itex, Fang. And you and Max with work, that just makes the timing better. You're both young, in love, with stable jobs and solid careers. You know, the CSM has a _great_ maternity leave package." She raised one eyebrow to punctuate her tempting information.

Fang rubbed the back of his neck and hedged, "Some of the Itex heads are still out there, they didn't all get locked up. You never know."

Brigid's musical laugh soothed Fang's awkwardness. "You really don't have to worry, Fang. CSM's monitoring program is top-of-the-line. Guess what I heard last week?" She paused dramatically.

David played along. "What did you hear, Bri?"

She grinned at David. "One of the old lead scientists from Itex International, Roland Der Bach or something, is holed up in Switzerland with a kennel full of Saint Bernard dogs."

David chuckled, but caught Fang's troubled gaze and quit.

"Ter Borcht is breeding dogs? You're aware that he's a sociopathic geneticist, right?"

Brigid placed a placating hand on Fang's arm and shook her head. "Like I said, we're monitoring it. If he does anything he shouldn't with those dogs, we'll have Interpol all over him within the hour. He's harmless now, really."

Fang wasn't sure that was enough, but smiled politely and asked Dave how work had been treating him. They chatted idly for a few minutes before Brigid saw Stacey and pulled Dave away towards greater social endeavors.

Being left on his own was a little awkward, if not uncomfortable. Too many of the women either didn't see or didn't care about the wedding band on his finger. It reminded him how infrequently he actually came with Max to any of her work events anymore.

Fang spent ten minutes ignoring the flirtatious stares of the ladies before he ended up at the bar, nursing a Corona and people-watching idly, mercifully hidden.

He was invisible. Inaudible. Completely Imperceptible, courtesy of his mutated DNA, with a self-satisfied smirk spanning his 5 o'clock shadow where nobody could see it.

His weird power of becoming invisible when he was still had developed into something infinitely cooler when he hit eighteen. He nearly had a coronary when he looked down, expecting to see his shoes, and saw that he wasn't there at all. It only took another minute to figure out the best way to prank Max.

He figured it was a mental thing, rather than physical. He couldn't walk through walls or anything. But no one could see, hear, or even smell him when he slid into stealth mode. Angel complained that his thoughts vanished completely when we went Imperceptible. He considered it a perk.

As it was, he was happy enough to sit at the corner of the bar with his beer, Imperceptibility shielding him from beguiling lashes. When the last cool sip passed his lips, he set the bottle on the counter impossibly silently, watching for that satisfying moment when he took his hand away and it was visible again. The beer was small enough that all it took was some skin-on-surface contact to bring it with him into that silent, unseen little tear in the atmosphere. He'd tried a few times to bring bigger things with him, but it took a concentrated attempt, and anything bigger than _him_ was an effort that required a serious nap afterward. But shielding little things, like the beer bottle (or, more practically, the clothes on his back) was as simple as breathing.

It was a good while later when he saw Max wandering towards the bar with her hair unpinned and her red heels in her hand. He twisted his empty bottle on the counter as he'd done compulsively for the past twenty minutes and let himself be seen again. Max did a double take and smiled brightly at him, waltzing over in bare toes and grabbing his hand up in hers, fingers kneading and pulling in an affectionate grasp.

"You've really got the party raging over here." She eyed him knowingly. "You haven't been hiding here the whole time, have you?"

He smirked coolly and spun his beer bottle again with a little shake of his head.

Max sidled closer and trailed her fingers over his forearm. "I wish we could ditch early. I can't even enjoy the party, I'm so busy shaking hands with all these higher-ups from out of town."

Fang watched her fingers ruffle his shirtsleeve and hummed lowly, "And their charming assistants." He waggled his eyebrows at her and she frowned.

"Little piggies everywhere. I swear, if one more jerk looks at the rock on my finger and _still_ asks me what I'm doing later tonight, someone's gonna be making an emergency trip to the dentist."

Fang toyed with the red waistband of Max's dress and his lips quirked up, "Why, what _are_ you doing tonight?"

Max's brows drew together and her jaw set in that serious way that let Fang know his easy jibes were working their magic, and that she was in complete denial about it.

"You're cute when you're pissed off. I'm not surprised you're drawing attention." He let his eyes rake over her slender form, watching a delicate flush creep up her neckline.

She gave him a warning glare and rolled her eyes, lips twitching into a half-smile. "At least I don't have to worry about _you_." She turned to lean into his shoulder and sighed, "No one needs a jealous helicopter husband in the middle of all this requisite schmoozing."

Fang chuckled and kissed the side of her neck softly. "Like I'd ever be jealous of those featherless saps."

Max giggled and turned to meet his lips. They were just moving from PG to PG-13 territory when someone behind them cleared his throat. Max immediately straightened, turning under Fang's tightening grip and going slack-jawed.

"_Dylan_?"

The blonde man grimaced and scratched the back of his neck uncomfortably, looking for all the world like he regretted catching her attention at all. He nodded over her shoulder, catching Fang's eye. "Fang." He bit his lip and inclined his head towards Max, swallowing thickly, Adam's apple bobbing. "Max."

Fang's fingers dug into Max's side possessively and he straightened his shoulders, wings puffing up slightly. Dylan may have still been taller by an inch or two, but he wasn't freshly cloned and pumped with growth hormones anymore. He had lost some weight since they were teenagers, and Fang had several pounds of muscle mass on him at this point.

Max shot Fang a warning look over her shoulder and turned back to Dylan. She fidgeted with the waistband of her dress over Fang's fingers, stroking his knuckles soothingly but letting her wedding band click against his. "Wow. It's been...what, eight...nine years? How've you been?" She winced as the typical small-talk escaped her lips, unbidden and damningly hollow.

Dylan's face grew tense and he stared at the way Max's ring finger intertwined with Fang's before fixing his gaze on the edge of the bar. "Uh, it's been good, it's been good...you know..." He trailed off awkwardly and sighed. His turquoise eyes darted towards Max and then right back down at the hardwood top. "I've been in Africa, actually. Working for a sister company of the CSM."

"Ah." Max nodded cautiously. Then she perked up, eyes locked on Brigid and Stacey where they stood across the room, waving excitedly, and she excused herself neatly. She left Fang with a parting hiss of '_play nice!'_ before disappearing into the crowd. Fang watched her go reluctantly and turned back to Dylan, an excuse to leave already half-formed on his tongue when Dylan cut in.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Fang looked him over dubiously before nodding, sitting back down on his stool and observing Dylan follow his lead from the corner of his eye. He watched him flag down the bartender and request two of whatever Fang had been drinking, clutching at the frosted bottle nervously when it was placed in front of him and staring hard at a gash on the bar.

Fang was halfway through his second beer of the night and had turned around to resume people watching when Dylan finally cleared his throat and spoke.

"I, uh, I was actually hoping you'd be here."

Fang scoffed and raised an eyebrow. "You mean Max."

"No...nope. I came here for you."

Fang paused with his beer halfway to his lips and turned to face Dylan, watching anxious resignation sweep across his honest face. "Yeah?"

"Yeah, I...geez. The way things went down, back when M-," he caught himself and shook his head, "back when She said I could be in the Flock, I didn't...I mean..." He raised his eyes to meet Fang's, bright blues swimming with determination while his thumbs drew senseless patterns in the beading moisture on his drink. "I was a complete ass. Maybe it sounds stupid to say I didn't know any better, but I really didn't." He coughed low in his throat and rolled his eyes, thumb tapping on the counter. "Hans made sure of that."

Fang watched Dylan take a healthy swig of glowing amber liquid, feeling heat rise in his chest. "You're really blaming Gunther-Hagen?"

Dylan's eyes went wide and he shook his head fervently. "No, I know I did it. I pushed you and I pushed Her and I was a real jerk about all of it. I know it's messed up, but it was what I thought I was supposed to be." He chuckled nervously and let his head fall onto one shoulder, staring with unseeing eyes at his glass-moistened thumb. "Did you know Hans wanted me to call him 'dad'? But I wasn't ever more than an experiment to him. A breeding machine, made with one purpose, to help save the world by loving the girl who was supposed to do it." His brows furrowed and he met Fang's eyes again with fierce determination. "I am more than that. I am more than what he created me to be. I am _choosing_ to be more than that."

Fang shifted uncomfortably, feeling heat creep up his neck. Dylan's conviction was biting, and completely unexpected. Who was he kidding, seeing _Dylan_ was completely unexpected. He took another sip of his beer, feeling irked that he had to sit here and listen at all.

"So when the job in Africa came up, I took it. Hans was furious; kept trying to herd me back to Canada to be with him doing god-knows-what, but I basically went dark for a while and changed my number so it's calmed down a lot now. I do airdrops of supplies for some of the poorer rural areas in Algeria. It's so bad out there, man, they really need the help, and it's awesome to be able to give back."

Fang nodded, trying to keep cool as Dylan's words worked their way into his deep-seated distaste for him, slowly pulling it apart at the seams. He drew his brows together and glanced at the man. "Do you have someone out there? In Algeria?"

"What, a girl?" Dylan shook his head and took another swallow of beer. "No, dude, I can't. It wouldn't be fair to any of them." At Fang's questioning glance, he went on. "I can't just turn off the desire Hans wrote into my DNA. I tried going out a few times, with other girls, but they just aren't _Her._ You know."

Fang did know.

"So, I just don't." Dylan sighed wistfully and spared a smile for Fang. "She was never mine, anyway. I knew that then, even if I didn't admit it," he glanced at Fang's wedding band, "and I know it now."

Fang recalled that rough time when he wasn't so sure. It hadn't been long, really - Dylan wasn't with them more than three weeks - but alongside getting kicked out of the Flock for being too focused on Max and being hunted by mad scientists and the whole _dying_ incident in Gunther-Hagen's lab, it was enough to shake him up pretty bad. Dylan had made such a compelling argument about how dangerous Fang was for Max, and how Dylan had been _made_ for her, and at the time, Fang could see it. Everything Dylan told him got internalized, poisoning his thoughts until he felt guilty every time he so much as held Max's hand. It was bad enough that he almost left, had a note written out and everything.

But then he saw Max in her dress at the wedding and he found he couldn't make himself leave her after all.

Dylan seemed to read his mind, gazing off into the crowd with a bitter smile across his face. "I never stood a chance. Maybe you didn't see it at the time, but the way She looked at you, man..." He trailed off and tipped the last of his beer down his throat. "She's always been yours."

It was then that Max emerged, heels still in hand, from a spot Dylan had been diligently trying to avoid as he stared off into the crowd. He quickly turned his gaze back on Fang and stuck out his flat palm. "Thanks for letting me talk, Fang. I probably don't deserve the chance, so, thanks."

Fang nodded, giving Dylan a firm shake and the beginnings of a smirk. He tried to keep his bitterness hidden. "Thanks for doing the talking."

Dylan barked a laugh and glanced towards Max as she made her way to them. He stood up off his bar stool, flipped a few bills onto the bar for the drinks, and said, "You probably won't hear from me again. Stay cool." He gave Fang a parting nod before turning on his heel and disappearing into the crowd.

Max was at Fang's side a moment later, cheeks tinged pink, eyes wide. "Brigid is in complete 'mommy mode' already, and she's only four months in. I hope she was more discreet with you." She dragged one palm across her belly and shuddered. "But she had some news from Ella she was dying to talk about, and I decided I was _very_ interested." She grinned conspiratorially and then paused. She blinked and twisted to sweep a glance across the crowd. "Dylan's gone already? That was fast. What did he want to talk to you about?"

Fang shrugged and slid his arms around Max's waist, capturing her lips in a soft kiss before pulling her into him and swaying from side to side. "Just catching up. Seems like he's doing well. Adjusting."

Max snorted. "Good for him. I still can't believe he was only alive for eight months when we met him." She snickered, "I got hit on by a one-year-old."

Fang swallowed the flickers of pain the memory brought and instead thought of celibate-Dylan delivering canned goods to dusty children in huts. He hid behind his familiar smirk and whispered into Max's ear, "Always knew you had a thing for younger men."

"You don't really _count_, Fang, I've only got a couple of months on you."

Fang's smirk widened in the way he knew drove Max crazy. "Don't crush my fantasies. Maybe I like older women." He craned his head down and breathed her in, trailing his nose along her jaw and holding back a laugh when Max all but melted into him.

When he pulled away, she bit her lower lip and grinned, wiggling her eyebrows salaciously. "What made you all feisty all of a sudden?" Her brows drew together, her eyes flashing. "Did Dylan say something?" Fang just shrugged, eyeing the graceful slope of Max's neck and collar. She caught him looking and the concern in her eyes was replaced with an arrogant spark. "You're ready to go, aren't you?"

"Definitely." Fang trailed his hand down Max's soft arm, fitting their long fingers together. "You're sure you don't have any more hands to shake?"

"Nope." Max beamed. "I'm good to go."

Fang smirked down at her before turning towards the exit. "Then let's fly."

* * *

**Bursting with a reaction? Let me know in the comment box beloooooow!**

**For now, it's conversatin' time:**

**Mia, **I kind of replied to your review in the intro authors' note, but I'll say it again - don't go running! There _will_ be some more Dylan here and there after this chapter, but I'm working hard to make him likeable. Part of that means he doesn't get in the way of Max and Fang, ever. Part of Dylan's problem is that he's not really likeable at all in the books. He's pushy and bland and doesn't let Max say 'no,' which is absolutely not okay. In 'Out of Sight,' we're eight years down the line and the guy has had a chance to grow up a little.

**KLoves2Read,** you are killing me with all these lemony oneshot ideas, haha. Maybe some day, I won't rule it out. The lake certainly opens up some possibilities. I also think it's kind of amazing that you still review, even though you've worked with me on all these chapters behind the scenes. You'd be justified in running out of things to say, but you're so sweet to come back again to pick out your favorite parts. Best beta ever? Probably. I wouldn't claim otherwise. =)

**thestupidgenius1123, **I kind of feel like all of your reviews are love letters to my words. Seriously, you gave me like an entire page! Glorious. I just wanna, like, pretend it's sunshine and bask in it for a few hours. But yeah, I go through periods where the story will write itself...bits of it, anyway. Right now, I'm working on a really emotional/angsty part for Fang and I've got his thoughts running through my head, just bursting to get put on paper. But I haven't written out the bit that comes before it yet and it's hard to make myself go there. I love reading your guesses for what's important and what you want to see more of. I promise, it'll all come to light. Some things take a lot longer than others, but they all get answered. There _will_ be some angsty Fax ahead, but the relationship itself never comes under doubt, so hopefully that will satisfy.

**Nola96, **Aw, thank you so much, I am super flattered. =) I love that you love my Fax writing, and I hope this story satisfies. I'm right there with you, I _hate_ satirized canon. I get where the stereotypes of the characters come from, but it makes reading things such a drag. I'm glad you think I pull away from that successfully. My favorite part of your note, though, is about the descriptiveness. I genuinely _like_ words. I like working with them. I want to paint pictures with them. I want to put words to emotions and make you _feel_ things. This story is way different from what I've done before, in that I'm trying to push out action and real plot development, so I'm trying to find this balance between describing the scene and just getting a move on already. I really don't want to let the story get bogged down in emotional inner-monologues. I mean, it gets angsty up in here, so there are a few, but some fics I read feel like they're _made_ of angsty inner-monologues. I don't want to do that. Hopefully I can hold onto that throughout. You tell me. =)

**Review again and I'll write you more! Review for the first time, and I will...also write to you. I think it makes reviewing ten times better for you AND me if I get to talk to you about it.**


	4. Chapter 3 - Paranoia

**Author's Note: **Massive thanks to those of you who took the time to review! I'm so glad that Dylan is palatable. You'll see some more of him. Kind of soon. I won't tell you when or why, but he's coming back and he'll be important. So knowing that he's likeable is super important to me. **Nola96**, you gotta trust, I'll keep him good. Just like I said, NO LOVE TRIANGLE! **KLoves2Read**, I will _always_ give credit for your awesome beta-skills. You're da bomb. **thestupidgenius1123, **I hope your haircut turned out how you want! 6 inches is always nerve-wracking. I am one of those crazy people who cuts their own hair, and once or twice I've gone way shorter and lemme tell you, it is _extra_ terrifying when you're doing it to yourself. O.o As for Brigid pushing the idea of kids, that's mostly just a fun dialogue moment, not foreshadowing for _this_ story. Though, **KLoves2Read**keeps nudging me to make a sequel to Loving You Slowly, and now...well, let's just say the idea has been planted and I have a setup waiting if I decide to go that route. **BookGuru101**, thank you for leaving a note! I'm so glad you like it. I definitely plan to keep going. In fact, I'm gonna post this and go right back to writing.

Extra special thanks to **hisgirltuesday** for going on an encouraging review binge on aaaall of my chapters so far - you rock! I seriously love your stuff, so I'm extra glad that you like mine, and all of your comments made me smile. So encouraging. I hope you like what comes next!

**Time for a fax chapter. Max can feel that something's about to happen. Can you?**

* * *

**CHAPTER 3 - PARANOIA**

The night was warm and sticky, which made Max and Fang warm and sticky, even if their flight home from the party was only five short minutes. Fang took his time when they landed, staring up into the night sky as Max strode towards the building stoop.

She faltered when she noticed he wasn't right behind her. "You coming, babe?"

Fang shrugged, letting his eyes wander over familiar constellations, his sharp eyesight picking up even the fainter stars through the city light pollution.

Max heaved a sigh and came back to him, clasping his shoulder and leaning in. "I feel gross, and I need out of these clothes. I'll see you inside?" She hopped up on her toes to leave a lingering kiss beneath his ear. "Don't be too long," she whispered and turned to go, leaving him on the sidewalk outside their building.

He just wanted another minute to breathe. Seeing Dylan again was..._unexpected._ Hearing him basically apologize for how he'd behaved during his time with the Flock wasn't something Fang had ever anticipated. And it had been a real, heartfelt, surprisingly adequate apology.

It also opened old wounds, niggling thoughts of insufficiency that Fang had long since buried. He really didn't want to have to figure out how to stuff everything back down in the corner of his mind where it belonged.

Stargazing clearly a bust, considering his distracted thoughts, he sighed and peeled himself off the side of the building, making his way up via the concrete stairwell. The door was already locked, courtesy of Max's good habit. Fang rapped on the door twice while jiggling his key in the lock and opened the apartment himself before Max came to let him in. Her red stilettos were waiting right inside the door where she had dropped them, making him stumble as he slipped inside. He rolled his eyes and hooked his keys on the wall, letting his nice sport coat roll off his shoulders to fall in a crumpled heap on top of Max's shoes.

By the time he reached the bedroom, his shirt was unbuttoned, his tie draped lopsided around his neck, and his fingers were working at his belt buckle. He paused in the doorway and frowned at the sight of Max, arms folded tightly across her damp towel, staring stiffly out the window.

"You okay, babe?"

"Hmm?" Max glanced over her shoulder with a faltering smile before losing herself again in the blackness outside the glass panes.

Fang sighed and let his pants fall to the floor before padding over to her in his boxers and dress shirt, sliding his arms around her narrow waist. He kissed her damp temple and followed her gaze towards the moonlit night and the streetlamps below. He straightened behind her and pulled her back into him by the shoulders, his thumbs smoothing across the ridges of her wings. "Are you worried again?"

Max took a minute, chewing on her lip silently. Fang bit back a sigh that he was sure would sound exasperated and gave her shoulders a squeeze. He was just turning toward the bed when Max whispered, "It just feels like we're being _watched._"

Fang's dark eyes pinched shut and he sucked in a breath. He made himself wait a moment before answering, but he couldn't keep the impatient edge out of his voice. "By who, Max?"

Max stiffened, and Fang figured she was anticipating their familiar argument. They knew their roles and all their lines. No one would win. He didn't want this.

She answered him anyway in a tense whisper, "I don't know."

She breathed harshly in the silence, fighting with herself in a battle that Fang knew she still hadn't figured out how to win. She hadn't shoved him away yet with a flick of her wings, which was a good sign.

She must have made some sort of decision, because she pressed back against him, trembling. "I wish I knew, Fang. I do. I wish I knew how to avoid this creepy-crawly feeling, but I swear it's worse every night. I _know_ it sounds dumb. I _know_ we've been safe since Itex went down all those years ago. And I know, babe, I _know_ it drives you crazy." She tilted her head back, looking up at him with unfulfilled apology making her eyes water. "I just can't make it _quit._"

Fang didn't want the rehashed argument. Not tonight. He looked down at her, feeling pity mingle with his impatience and his exhaustion. He swallowed a groan with a yawn and tugged gently at her elbows, pulling her away from the window.

"Just come to bed, Max."

She let him lead her to the bed they shared and watched him discard his wrinkled shirt and tie. She ran the towel through her hair once more and dropped it, leaving it crumpled on the floor next to the bed skirt, and crawled between the sheets with a shuddering sigh. Fang wriggled himself under the covers and pulled her back against him, wrapping her up tightly with his arms around her waist, fingers stroking smoothing circles across her belly.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, so softly that it was little more than the quiet click of her tongue and a soft hiss.

Fang blinked down at her, at the back of her head in the dark. "Why?"

Max pressed herself against him, wings to bare chest, until he could feel the rapid thrumming of her heartbeat beneath her ribs. "For being afraid of nothing."

It was a full moment before Fang replied, murmuring into her hair, "We all have things we carry with us. Even _after._"

She twisted to look at him, examining his face, and he knew she was looking for the cracks, for any sign of insincerity. Judging whether he was just saying that to make her feel better, or to head off the fight before it started. Or if he really meant it.

Couldn't she see that it was everything?

They'd grown up communicating in silence across whitecoats with needles and cage bars. Her face relaxed, eyes falling shut as she nestled deeper against his chest, but not before he saw the moment of doubt written plain as day across her furrowed brows and tight eyes.

"You're not the only one with baggage, Max. What we went through was seriously traumatic." His lips quirked in a fleeting half-smile and he looked at her seriously. "Just because _I_ hide my fears better than you doesn't mean – hey!" He winced dramatically and rubbed at his shoulder where she had slapped him playfully.

"Watch it! Don't forget who kept you alive when the world wanted us dead, Bird Boy."

She was grinning fiercely up at him and he knew he'd succeeded in distracting her. He grinned back at her across the rumpled sheets and shuffled closer, grumbling deeply, "I'm no _boy,_ Max." He took her face in his hands and pressed his lips to hers, aiming to complete his distraction.

She had finally relaxed beneath his touch when a light scratching, scratching, fluttering noise at the window made her look over at the blackness with a start. Fang gently stroked her jaw with his thumb, coaxing her back towards him, and pulling her closer beneath the covers. "Just a bat, Max." She nodded, clearly unconvinced, and took one shuddering breath before pressing herself back to him.

"Bat, or boogey-man?" she mumbled into his lips, pulling his lower lip into her mouth in a silence urge to complete the distraction.

Fang gladly followed her lead. He needed it as much as she did tonight. He was carefully building up blocks in his mind, already repairing the damage Dylan had inadvertently done to the wall between _Fang's_ fear and his everyday life. Dylan's apology had been startlingly sincere, enough that Fang felt the uncomfortable itch of owing Dylan some sort of grace. But the initial shock of seeing his old rival and getting a rush of bad memories and stomach-twisting adrenaline opened up old wounds that had to be carefully packed away again, before they did any damage.

"Will you be alright next week?" he mumbled in-between soft kisses.

"Hmm?" Max asked, more focused on what she was doing with her hands.

"I'll be gone all week. I've got that assignment for _National_ over in Africa." He paused to place closed lips against the corner of her mouth with a sigh, whispering his words across her jaw, "And then I'm sure Marty will try to force the Japan lead my way again, since I declined for the birthday party."

"I can handle myself, Fang," she murmured from beneath him. She sounded harsh with forced determination, but he could see her worry in the way she pinched her lips and the infinitesimal tightness around her eyes. He nodded his affirmation and watched her take a determined breath before pulling him back to her, her unconvincing whisper of 'I'll be fine' murmured against his lips.

He'd never tell her, but her worry was starting to get to him, too.

So he held her tightly, feeling powerless against the little itch of terror that was slowly consuming him with his own irrational fear. She was right here, _with him_ in every good way. They were safe, they were happy, they were reasonably successful. He _had_ her.

_But God, if he were to lose her..._

* * *

**...**

**BOO!**

**Whatcha thinking?**


	5. Chapter 4 - Africa

**Author's Note:** Welcome, new story followers! I'm thrilled that you like this enough to come along for the ride, and I hope I can continue to please.

**Nola96**, Sure, Fang's kind of brushing her off, but she's also been on edge for at least two weeks at this point. Can't really blame Fang for trying to bring her down from that edge when it's unfounded fear, yeah? I love that you can feel Max's anxiety, that was part of my goal writing that chapter.

**Guest**, I can't call you by name if I don't know it! I can see how this scene could lead to my little oneshot. These stories fit as part of the same universe in my head, although they're 22 in Maximum Bliss and 24 here. But it's definitely the same world. =)

**KLoves2Read,** you'll notice Max is dressed in the final edit. Initially she wasn't (although it wasn't explicit at all), but I figure, I'm aiming for a t-rating here so I gave her some clothes, haha. But yeah, aside from that, I had such a good time painting the picture for this scene. I get very visual when I'm writing, which is maybe why I enjoy writing action and sometimes struggle with dialogue.

**hisgirltuesday**, oh, yes. Yes, I did. And yes, things will change while Fang's in Africa. You'll have to hang onto the mystery a little bit longer, I'm trying to reveal things in bits and pieces, but this next chapter will get the ball rolling. Fang's only trying to refocus Max because she's been weirdly paranoid for weeks at this point, and their happy little life is still happy. Can't blame him for trying to help her relax, yeah?

**Read on! And lemme know what you're thinking when you're done!**

* * *

**CHAPTER 4 - AFRICA**

Fang sprawled across the peeling vinyl cushion of the open Jeep with the gorgeous Nikon in his lap, feet spread wide across the floor, one hand gripping the makeshift roll bar over his head. When the ragtag vehicle had squealed to a shuddering stop at the corner of the roach-infested hotel the morning after his flight in, he slid into the seat and buckled up dutifully, camera at the ready. Five bumpy minutes and three hard knocks to the head later, he figured the seatbelt didn't matter so much as his hand separating the crown of his head from the structural bar above him.

Not for the first time, Fang wished he could just fly. Glide along in the hot, dry air, arid earth far below him instead of grittying up his eyes, bumpy jeep ambling along under him as it led the way to the disconnected farming village instead of valiantly attempting to give him a concussion before he even arrived.

But Marty, that micromanaging ass, was convinced it would be rude to leave the guide – the only villager willing to pick him up in the community vehicle – with Fang's duffle and shooting equipment and no conversational partner on the three hour journey away from prosperity, the internet, and humanity in general.

As it turned out, the man's obvious preference for silence suited Fang just fine, so he gritted his teeth so as not to bite off the tip of his tongue and watched the yellow dust scroll by in peace.

Even though he had expected to see evidence of poverty, Fang frowned as dusty yellow earth transformed to dusty yellow scrub. A handful of bent women with knobby elbows poking out between dusty layers were tending to the scruffy brush. No wonder the village couldn't rise above the poverty line: the land wasn't producing viable crop. Fang chanced raising his camera to his brow for a shot but cursed when the jeep hit a small pothole, jerking the fifteen pound camera into his face and catapulting his tender scalp into the overhead bar.

When the jeep finally came to a halt alongside a long, low aluminum structure, it felt like half the village was there waiting for him. Slinging his duffle across his chest, he clambered out of the car and made his way towards a tall man wearing a raggedy polo and a beaming smile, wading through a sea of dark little eyes and grabby, grubby, dark little hands reaching out to touch their pale visitor.

"Hello, hello!"

"Hey, there, I'm with _National Geographic._ Call me Nick." He smiled politely and reached out for a handshake, only to be left hanging when the man nodded his head in a shallow, bobbing sort of bow. He peeked back at the jeep, but his silent driving companion had already disappeared.

That was one of the challenges with _National. _Ending up in remote places where you had no good way of communicating outside of a translator.

He turned back to the man and grinned crookedly. The man only smiled and bobbed his head, taking Fang by the elbow and gesturing with his other hand into the building. "Come, come, come."

Fang followed, leaving a trail of childish laughter in his wake. He stopped short when he felt the sharp pinch of a feather being torn out. He grunted and turned around, lips twitching up into a soft smile when he saw the small girl holding one of his wide secondary feathers in front of her on flat palms, the black glinting purple and green in the sunlight. Her bright, wondering eyes snapped up to Fang's and then behind him when the Polo Man clicked his tongue loudly and waved the giggling children away, muttering stern words before leading Fang along into the building.

Inside, Fang had expected to see a makeshift bed in a corner with his name on it, or maybe the scattered work of the women as they processed the meager farming yield. Or both. Definitely not-

"Dylan?"

Dylan's head snapped up and his eyes went wide. "Dude, no way! What are you doing here?" He turned and handed a small plastic box to the woman he had been speaking with, smiling kindly and covering her hands with his before making his way over to Fang, eyes darting around nervously. "When I told you I'd been working the airdrop circuit, I didn't expect you to show up." He scratched at his unshaven chin before dropping his thumbs into his pockets, smiling awkwardly and tapping his foot.

Fang shoved down the knee-jerk thrill of territorial energy that made his stomach clench, instead forcing himself to remember Dylan's unexpected apology at the CSM banquet. He readjusted the strap of his camera bag self-consciously. "Just here for work. I'll be gone in a week."

"That's great, really great," Dylan rambled. "These people need the exposure something like _National_ can bring. I mean, there's so much need." He gestured broadly around them.

Fang grunted and lifted his eyebrows in agreement. He eyed the handful of villagers milling about what he now saw was a sort of supply and storage center, mostly-empty wooden crates stacked against the walls, a couple of rusted pieces of farming equipment leaning against the aluminum siding. He met the smiling eyes of the Polo Man and gave him a small smile of his own before turning back to Dylan.

He could do this. He could be nice. The words felt forced anyway. "Any chance you can hang around for a week, be my translator?"

The cloud of tension seemed to break as the blonde man laughed loudly. "No can do, man, I'm about to head out. I've got another airdrop in a few hours, and I've never been late yet." He chuckled, shaking his head and side-eyeing Fang. "They had me bring fresh blankets for a visitor, but I had no idea it would be you. Crazy world." He shook his head again, shifting into a wide stance. "Hey, is there anything you need? A lot of things are hard to get a hold of here, since they're so isolated and all, but if you tell me before I take off I might be able to hook you up when I'm back in three days."

Fang cocked an eyebrow, dropping his over-full duffle from his shoulders. "Airdrops happen that frequently?"

Dylan shrugged. "Not usually. But this guy," he thumbed over to the Polo Man, "broke the blade on his plow over a chunk of rock. Didn't'cha, Jimmy?" He switched to the local language for a few words, laughing with 'Jimmy' before turning back to Fang. "Anyway, specific parts like that are special-order only, since there's a limit to how much we can put on the plane. We can't deliver until Monday after we've restocked in Switzerland. Hey, did you want to drop off your gear?" He motioned towards Fang's minimal luggage. Fang barely nodded before Dylan bent to grab the duffel and turned to leave.

Fang forced himself to look away from Dylan's hands on his things, kicking down that primal twinge of dominance and following behind. He watched Dylan chat animatedly with Jimmy and wondered why he wasn't just _over it_ already. It had been _years,_ and Dylan had changed. If Fang didn't believe it before, watching him interact with these people made it clear that new-Dylan was practically a saint, bringing desperately needed supplies to poverty stricken villages with incongruously happy people. Not to mention how hard he'd worked to stop obsessing over Max.

_Max._ Fang stood a little taller, fiddling with the settings on his camera as he walked. He got the girl in the end, after all. Max was his, and she'd be waiting for him when he got home in six days. _Maybe she finally tried on her birthday present from Nudge._ His couldn't keep from smiling at the thought as he ducked in through the doorway of one of the small homes with aluminum sheeting sides and a worn tarp roof. He stopped short when he almost ran into Dylan just inside the door.

"Here." Jimmy stood further inside the room and gestured towards a thin cot against the wall. When Fang didn't move right away, he came back over and gently took Fang's elbow, drawing him further in. "Here, yours."

"This is Jimmy's house. Looks like you'll be hanging out with his family when you're not working." Dylan set Fang's duffle next to the cot and stepped back so Fang could put down his camera gear. "Okay, I've gotta hit the sky. Anything you need me to bring? Last chance. You're basically in the middle of nowhere."

Fang shook his head, moving his duffle bag to the other side of the cot from where Dylan had dropped it. "Should be fine. I've lived on less than this."

Dylan chuckled and clapped Fang between the wings, making him tense. "Right, right. You're a seasoned fugitive. Whelp, see you in a few days."

Fang watched Dylan slip out, leaving him behind with Jimmy. The Polo Man gestured toward Fang's camera and mimed hitting the shutter button. "Work now?" He stood tall and smiled broadly until Fang obliged by snapping a few shots, relaxing enough to grin behind his camera.

The next few days passed in a dusty yellow blur of yammering kids, messy scrawls on notebook pages, and more red beans than Fang cared to eat. He had no bars on his phone, which meant a blissful reprieve from Marty's micro-managing while he worked. His SD card was filled with bright white smiles and stunning aerial views mingled with shots of ragged crops and sweaty farmers trying to till barren land with makeshift tools. Jimmy seemed eager for Dylan to come back with his missing plow blade so that Fang could photograph him doing..._something_.

Except the airdrop never came.

Fang tried to ask Jimmy about it later in the day, showing his wings awkwardly and pointing to the broken plow, but Jimmy waved him off, smiling. "Tomorow, maybe. Tomorrow. No worries, Mr. Nick."

Thing was, Dylan didn't show on Tuesday, either. Fang remembered Dylan's cocky remark about how he'd '_never been late yet'_ and felt uneasy as he wondered whether Dylan really meant it.

Really, Dylan could never show up again and he'd be fine with it. But this village needed the supplies he was supposed to bring. And maybe Max's paranoia had really gotten to him, but Fang found himself watching the shadows more closely. Even if it was only Dylan, one of them going missing was not something to ignore.

It was with that in mind that Fang put in a call to Air France to move his flight up a day, easily snagging a seat on the Tuesday evening flight to Heathrow. He was itching to swing by the CSM to see if they knew what had held up Dylan. He had more than enough material for the article, anyway, and he was ready to sleep in his own bed.

That afternoon, the jeep was still out on a run to the nearest city when Fang was ready to go. So he bade farewell to Jimmy, leaving more than half his clothing to thank the man for his hospitality (and lighten his flying load). He high-fived a few of the kids and gave an extra pat on the head to the girl who'd pilfered his feather. He grinned down at her before jogging a few feet and leaping into the air, angling himself expertly towards the airport and sinking into the calm zen of distance flying.

One sleepless night and two long airplane flights later, Fang was gnashing his way through a flavorless pre-packaged sandwich at the JFK airport, waiting for 2:30 to come so he could make his last connection back to Denver. He felt like a zombie. He was hunched over the sandwich paper spread across his lap, staring blankly at the Airport People walking past with their matching luggage sets and inflatable travel pillows and As-Seen-On-TV no-wrinkle shirts, bored out of his mind and feeling too tired even to think about Dylan's disappearance, let alone do any more work on his article.

Picking a crumb off his chin and eating it, Fang looked down at his pants pocket blandly. The fabric glowed as the phone vibrated against his hip. He fished it out of his pocket unhurriedly, pausing to see his boss's name on the Caller ID before hitting accept.

"Marty."

"Care to tell me why your flight was moved up a day?" Marty Dayburn snarled, sounding positively livid.

Fang frowned, trepidation creeping in, and put the last two bites of his sandwich down. "I got all the research done. Didn't need to stay another day on the company dime."

"Dammit, Ride! I have an important connection waiting for you in Meftah right now. And you're not there."

"What, like an informant?" His brows drew together and he glanced down as the top piece of bread on his sandwich remnants tipped over, leaving the lettuce bare.

"A...? Yes, yes, he's got meat for the article. But you're _not_ _there_, Ride."

Fang's nostrils flared, lips flickering between impassivity and a sneer. "Wasn't on the schedule. Just have him email me," he intoned coolly.

"It's too late, Ride," Marty spat into the phone. "It was a limited engagement and now it's nothing."

"Why is this such a big deal?" Fang couldn't help the aggravation creeping into his voice. He'd seen Marty pissed off plenty of times, even seen him turn purple in the face as he chewed out a coworker, but so far Fang had kept his head down and succeeded in avoiding the brunt of his boss's anger. He didn't think finishing an assignment _early_ would be the thing that got him on Dayburn's bad side.

"Why is this...? Why...? Jesus, Nick." Marty huffed noisily into the phone. Fang reassembled his sandwich and took another flavorless bite. "Just get your ass home, we'll deal with it from here. Let me see you in the office tomorrow bright and early and we'll talk about it."

"'Kay," Fang mumbled around a mouthful of dry cold cuts and watery tomato.

Marty breathed angrily for a few seconds before adding, "I want that report finished and on my desk a-sap, Ride."

The line went dead and the airport speakers crackled to life. Fang rolled his eyes, crammed the last bit of his sandwich into his mouth, and fisted the crumb-covered sandwich paper in one hand as he stood to make his way to his flight gate.

_What an ass._


	6. Chapter 5 - Welcome Home, Fang

**Author's Note: **Time for things to start picking up. Are you excited?

Yes, _National Geographic_ is a kick-ass job for Fang. Yes, I had all sorts of thoughts about wanting to steal **thestupidgenius1123**'s idea and make him a newspaper editor, because for some reason that is a super-sexy job for Fang. But I've written about _National_ in some of my other stories and I'd like to keep this in line with the little world I'm building for them, and as **hisgirltuesday** mentioned, Fang having a job that travels is perfect. Especially for _this_ story. **Nola96**, I'm glad you're worried about Dylan. Hold onto that for a little bit. I'll be good to it, promise! **KLoves2Read,** thank you for keepin' your lips zipped, and for helping me work this _next_ chapter into something wonderful.

Hold onto your hats:

* * *

**CHAPTER 5 - WELCOME HOME, FANG**

Flying was the _shit._

There was nothing like it. If there was, he hadn't found it. Flying a thousand feet in the air, suspended by his own sinewy, corded wings, wind tearing through his feathers, nose going numb but eyes bright and muscles _alive – _nothing else came close_._

Singular perk of lab-made genetics aside, Fang appreciated being able to cross half the country in four and-a-half hours with wifi access and a coke with ice. He roughed out the first draft of his report on Algeria during the flight and felt confidence about showing up to work on Thursday with something solid to show to his boss. Dayburn would probably already have something else to be angry about, anyway, and it would blow over like nothing.

It took an hour just to get off the plane and out of the airport, but then he was home free. The flight back to the apartment was short and mercifully cool in the mountain air. An easy smile slipped across Fang's face as he wheeled down towards the apartment building, taking a few running steps on the sidewalk to lose momentum before hauling his bags up the stairs.

Fang was still grinning when he shouldered through the unlocked door to their apartment, feeling sinfully tired but grateful to be home. He had a lot to be thankful for in the years since Itex was crushed, but getting to come home to Max every day was way at the top of his list of good things. Coming home to Max was even better after a week away for work. And he was _very_ ready to remind her just how much he appreciated her.

He stopped at the couch and dropped his travel bag unceremoniously at his feet, stretching out a crick in his neck and glancing tiredly towards the unlit kitchen. Usually, _she_ was just as ready to see him, but everything was quiet. Then again, he was home one day earlier than planned. It's not like she would have expected him home already.

"Max?" he called softly. The bedroom door caught his eye, pulled almost all the way shut instead of open, like usual. He snorted quietly to himself and squatted to wrestle his laptop from his bag. It was only seven and she was already asleep. Must've been a long day at the CSM.

He played some tinny music from his laptop speakers and fiddled around with the images he'd taken in Africa, narrowing them down and processing the best ones for the article. He lost track of time. It was a good two hours later when he realized he couldn't feel his right foot. He swallowed his third yawn of the night. The laptop clicked shut under his thumbs. He padded toward the bedroom in socked feet, smiling through another yawn at the thought of waking Max, all warm and grumpy-soft and pliable from sleep.

He would only keep her up for a little while.

He nudged his way through the door and hesitated. The bed was empty. He leaned back through the doorway and to look at the entryway. Max's purse and keys (and shoes) were scattered, as usual.

His fingers flew to his shirt buttons as he shuffled into the bathroom. It was a little late to go for a fly, but Max was…_Max._

He took his time in the shower. Somehow, there was still yellow dust between his feathers. The pulsing stream from the hand-held shower head made the water run brown and his wings fall slack, long primaries bowing gently against the shower floor. He leaned his face against the cold tile wall with a heavy sigh as the water washed him clean, mind drifting to dirty brown faces and hunger-stark ribs and the unfairness of global capitalism. Dylan was doing a good thing, trying to put a dent in the problem. It was easier to admit it when he didn't have to share space with the guy. He wondered again what kind of trouble could have kept Dylan from running his scheduled air drop.

The shower spray finally ran cold and Fang blinked, bleary-eyed, unable to ignore his exhaustion any longer. He toweled off, yanked a fresh pair of boxers over his still-damp legs, and trudged back into his empty bedroom with one hand fisting his hair tiredly.

_Where was his wife?_

There was an uncomfortable twinge in his stomach as he trailed his fingers across the smooth comforter on _her_ side of the bed. It was weird, because Max _never_ made the bed (on principle, she told him repeatedly). He was practically drunk with sleepiness but just then his need to see Max was a hundred times stronger than his need to slip between the covers and close his eyes.

He grabbed a wrinkled t-shirt out of the clean laundry basket he'd left behind almost a week ago and pulled it over his head on his way towards the window. He snatched his pillow from the bed on a whim, thinking he'd stretch out on the roof in the crisp air while he waited up for Max. He pushed the curtains aside and fiddled with the window lock with one hand, deftly flipping the catch. The window was halfway open before his breath caught in his throat. His heartbeat felt unsteady, thumping hard enough that he could feel it in his face. The pillow slipped from his grasp as he turned, striding out of the bedroom to check the double-paned windows in the living room.

Both locked.

And the kitchen window? Locked, too.

The apartment door was left unlocked when he came home... But neither of them would leave through the _door_ to go for a fly, and they sure as hell wouldn't have left it unlocked.

_Bzzzt. Bzzzt. Bzzzt._

Fang jerked at the insistent buzzing. He looked at the consol table and saw Max's beat-up, lime green phone shift across the smooth top. He turned it over. Ella's goofy grin lit up the screen.

"Hey," Fang answered, gripping the phone a little more tightly than he should have.

There was a brief pause and then Ella's shaky voice broke the silence. "Oh, Fang. It's you."

"Yeah."

"I thought you were in Africa until tomorrow?"

"Came home early."

"That's great, actually," she sighed, sounding relieved. "Is Iggy there with you? I need to speak with him."

Fang frowned. "Is Iggy supposed to be here?"

Ella's voice leapt a few pitches. "You mean he's not with you and Max?"

Fang wiped his sweaty palm on his shirt front and slumped down onto the couch. "We haven't seen either of you since the reunion."

Ella drew a shaky breath and spoke with a forced calm. "Iggy didn't come home from work today. The office said he got called in to a bomb threat near the mall. They won't tell me what h-happened, all I know is the rest of his squad is f-fine a-a-and Iggy's n-not here..." Her words died as she choked on a sob. Fang listened to her breathe heavily, mind spinning. Max wasn't at home, but all of her things were. Iggy went AWOL at work. Dylan missed his airdrop. A grim chill settled in the pit of his stomach.

Ella's crying quieted and she sniffed a few times before thanking Fang anyway. "Just...just let me know if you hear from him, okay?"

"Sure. Um, Ella?" The question was on the tip of his dry tongue. The line went silent, but she didn't hang up. "Have you heard from Max?"

"Uh, not since Monday morning. She texted to say hi, and said she was thinking of skipping out on work because she felt sick-ish. Isn't she with you? You answered her phone."

"She's probably just out for a fly." He was trying to convince himself even more than Ella, but he tasted the sour bite of the lie beneath his tongue. The grim feeling moved from his stomach to catch in his throat.

"Sick? And without her phone?" Ella questioned. She sighed. "Well, tell her about Iggy for me, will you? I'll let you guys know if I hear anything."

"Okay." Fang tuned out his sister-in-law's goodbye. He stared blankly down at the screen of Max's phone until it faded, trying to get a grip on his racing thoughts so he could work through them logically. Itex went down a good 8 or 9 years ago, and their lives had settled into a hard-won peacefulness. The only enemies left were the tabloids trying to drum up drama. But tabloids don't make three Avian-Americans vanish within a week.

_Move, move, move._

He stood up, resolute, and jerked his duffel bag up from the floor. He dumped the dusty contents unceremoniously into the laundry bin, right on top of the clean laundry. The deflated bag landed upside down on the bed and Fang crouched in front of the dresser, grabbing fistfuls of fresh underwear before moving on to the t-shirts.

_Move, move, move._

You never stay still when there's a threat. The Flock learned that lesson long before they were even out of their cages. Even if you don't know what the threat is or where to go, if you can move you do it. Fang's only thought was to get to see if Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel were safe. Then he'd figure out where to go from there.

He was fighting with the zipper when his vision swam around the edges. He blinked furiously, the distortion spreading like a migraine aura. It made him feel pretty sick. He braced himself over his half-closed bag, pinched his eyes shut, and S_aw._

He was standing in a concrete room with a drain in the center of the floor. Stains on the walls and floor flickered in the dim lighting. There was a row of chain-link kennels on one wall, filled with hairy _somethings._

Fang opened his eyes with a ragged gasp and felt his body clench, like being dunked in an ice bath. He looked around anxiously at his familiar bedroom, at the dusty clothes spilling out of the hamper, at the half-open window. The dizzying blur was still framing his vision and the glimpses of that _other_ room every time he blinked were downright nauseating, the way they tried to pull him back in. He didn't know what was happening, if this was a developing ability or _what_, but there was something behind his eyelids that he _needed_ to see.

He took a few quick breaths to steady himself before burying his face in the crook of his elbow. The somethings in the padlocked kennels were thickly furred, brown and black and white and sleeping quietly. All except one, hunched in the far corner, looking far more feathered than furry. Fang willed himself closer, past the sleeping dogs, until fierce aquamarine eyes met his in the flickering darkness. The face that held them was illuminated by the cool glow of the thick electric collar bolted to his neck.

Dylan spoke soundlessly, lips twisting obscenely in unheard words and fingers pointing urgently at the discarded shipping box outside his kennel. Fang squinted through the dim lighting, making out '_Bern'_ scrawled across the top, before gasping at the stomach-wrenching shock of the fading room and collapsing face-first on top of his half-packed bag.


	7. Chapter 6 - Believe Me

**Author's Note: **So, remember, way back in the prologue, when I said this was going to be about 22-25 chapters? Let's all have a big laugh...the more I write, the bigger this gets. I need more space to develop the characters the way I want! We're looking at 30 chapters or so at this point. I hope you're in it for the long haul...

I love constructive and thoughtful reviews. Thank you guys, all of you, for taking the time to say more than just one or two lines. I seriously feel sometimes like I have the best, most awesome reviewers on this site, because so many stories are flooded with basic "update moar!" oneliners and then I open my email to the gift of awesome, well thought-out paragraphs of encouragement. I can't even...

**thestupidgenius1123**, I freakin' love that you pick out favorite moments every time you review. They're so often some of _my_ favorite moments to write, so it's really encouraging that you're enjoying them. Oh, and if you get to tell me to update soon, then I ought to beg you to update yours! I mean, I know you updated today, but still...

**Nola96**, you make yourself fun to tease. Just saying. There are quite a few opportunities for cliffhangers in this story and I am going to TAKE THEM ALL. Prepare yo-self.

**j4bb3rwocky**, we talk. You are cool. I love that you take reviewing so seriously. It is the bomb. Please never stop. Also, this chapter hopefully moves a little bit more for you - but it's the _next_ three chapters where many things happen and there's some action. Maybe wait a couple of weeks and read them all at once again, if you want?

**KLoves2Read**, dang, girl, you are gonna keep pushing me to write lemons again, aren't you? =P Let me finish this poor story first, haha. I've emailed you another chapter. It's a complete clusterfuck. Good luck. (Seriously, guyz, this lady is awesome!)

**hisgirltuesday**, I love your crazy theories! No drugs in his sandwich, no. I hope what happens is more interesting. =) And no, I did mean "beyond compare." It's an idiom that I've heard frequently...but now googling it, it looks like "beyond comparison" is a more modern version of it? I think "beyond compare" is a little more poetic, which I suppose, considering Fang is waxing poetic about flying, is appropriate. They'd both be correct, technically.

I hope you guys love where I go with this plot twist of mine. This chapter is meant to point Fang in the right direction, and the three that follow are relatively action-packed, so look forward to that. Read on!

* * *

**CHAPTER 6 - BELIEVE ME**

_528 Walsh, 528 Walsh, 528 Walsh_

The simple address for the CSM headquarters bounced around in Fang's mind like a bucket of ping pong balls. He was cutting sharply across the bright midday sky, speeding over downtown Denver. After his vision of Dylan, he had passed out cold. He woke up at quarter to noon the next day with a headache like a hangover on steroids.

He didn't really need the address for the CSM playing on repeat. He knew Denver from the sky like the back of his hand, and he'd been inside CSM HQ plenty over the years, both for Max and for Itex remnant work. Trouble was, he couldn't calm his thoughts enough to focus on anything important. The street number was something concrete to hold on to: relieving white noise to keep him from getting lost in his muddled worries and half-baked theories.

Everything was _wrong_ \- the unlocked door, the crisply-made bed, the lime green phone lying forgotten on the console table.

Iggy missing.

His vision of Dylan.

_528 Walsh, 528 Walsh, 528 Walsh_

He executed a vertical landing in the middle of the sidewalk at Walsh and Madison, ignoring the startled cries of the suits out to lunch as he spun on his heel and pushed through the glass doors with cracked vinyl lettering. He tipped his chin at the receptionist's familiar greeting and threw open the door to the stairwell with a metallic bang, propelling himself up three steps at a time and wondering again why they couldn't've built this place with windows that opened or a balcony or _something _besides sweltering concrete stairwells and the unappealing alternative, a modestly-sized stainless elevator.

He spilled out through the grey-painted door with the stenciled '7' and onto the CSM office floor. Employees in pressed shirts and creased slacks leaned against the maze of half-wall cubicles, chatting tensely with arms crossed, others clacking furiously on keyboards. Fang's gaze landed on a head of wild, natural curls and he loped past curious stares towards the glass-walled office where Nudge sat, squinting at an array of three screens.

He went in without knocking and she glanced up, smiling tightly and going back to her screens with tension tugging at the corners of her tired eyes.

Fang paused as the door swung shut with a hushed click, hesitating over Nudge's quiet focus and thin-lipped grimace. He almost asked what was going on and why the hell everyone was acting like Godzilla was coming, but the roiling anxiety bubbled up in a harsh string of words.

"Max is gone. Have you heard from the kids?"

The clacking of the keyboard quieted for about half a second while Nudge stared at him. When she finally answered with a dismissive shake of her head, she was already typing again, tabbing furiously between her screens. "She's probably just out for a fly."

"She's been gone since yesterday afternoon. At least. Probably longer."

Nudge groaned and rolled back from her desk, turning to stare patronizingly at him. "So, she's gone on one of her long flights. You know how she loses track of time, Fang." Her eyes narrowed and she looked at him curiously. "Aren't you supposed to be in Africa right now, anyway? She probably just went to the lake to camp out or something and didn't think you'd be home to miss her. You know how she is."

Fang narrowed his eyes accusingly, clenching and unclenching his fist rhythmically. "No, you don't get it. Something's _wrong_."

She glanced impatiently at the waiting monitors. "Look, Fang, I've kind of got a crisis I'm trying to deal with. The CSM is in complete chaos and I've been working at this for three days already and I just want to scream or go to bed or eat my bodyweight in ice cream. Max'll turn up soon, like she always does, all high off her flight and ready to take on the world again, and it'll all be-"

Fang cut her off. "She left her phone, Nudge. And her keys. And the door was unlocked when I got home yesterday."

Nudge frowned, head arching forward, unimpressed. "Soooo she forgot to lock the door. So what?" Her brows furrowed as she finally took note of Fang's urgency, sitting up a little straighter. "You really think something is wrong, don't you?"

Fang gave her a hard stare, brows knitting solemnly. "It's not just Max. Ella called to say that Iggy went missing at work two days ago." He set his jaw in grim satisfaction when he finally had Nudge's wide-eyed attention. "And... Okay, this is going to sound certifiably insane, but-"

The door to the office swung open, the corner connecting sharply with Fang's elbow. Valencia Martinez strode in while Fang clutched his arm in pain, mouth open in a silent scream.

"Have you made any headway on the Freeze, Nudge?"

Nudge's wide eyes turned to Val. "Huh? Oh, the... No, everything's a dead-end. I can't tell how it's working yet, let alone where the stupid thing originated." Her eyes tracked back and forth between Fang and Val before she asked carefully, voice lilting innocently, "Hey, Dr. M? Is Max at work today?"

Val's eyebrows jumped up. She noticed Fang, curled in around his elbow, and looked at him appraisingly before shaking her head. "She called in sick on Monday. I haven't seen her all week." She fixed a hard stare on Fang as he straightened, elbow locked against his side. "Isn't she at home?"

Fang's insides felt like ice. "She's not there."

Val straightened up, shoulders back, staring up at Fang challengingly. "What do you mean, she's not there?"

"Iggy's missing, too," Nudge added.

"And possibly Dylan," Fang mumbled.

Nudge made a little sound of surprise and stared at Fang, wide-eyed. "Whaaaat?"

Val's face fell, lips parting and then pressing together firmly. Her eyes swam with concern as she pushed for more. "And you're sure she's not just out for a fly?"

Fang shoved his fists in his pockets and swallowed down pins and needles. "Positive. Every window in the apartment was locked, and she left her phone and keys and stuff." He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring. "Then Ella called. Iggy went missing from work."

Valencia's frown deepened, drawing deep creases across her face. She looked guilt-stricken. "Ella left a voicemail on my phone late last night, but with everything with the Freeze, I didn't bother replying."

Nudge looked at her sympathetically.

Fang ground his teeth, lips pressing into a pale, thin line. "And I saw Dylan. It was a vision. A dream or...something, I don't know. But it was _real_."

Nudge's face twisted in confusion. "What do you mean, you dreamed him and it was real?"

Fang dropped his head, hands raking through his hair from back to front, eyes darting back up to hers. "I don't _know,_ Nudge, I just know it was real. Maybe it's another stupid mutant thing. But Dylan's being held captive. I think they all are."

"Oh my god," Val whispered, bringing one hand up to finger her necklace absently.

Fang shoved his hands back into his pockets, trying to keep controlled. "Three of us, missing within a week." He resisted the impulse to punch the wall, settling for jamming his fists further down into his pockets. "Max is gone, and I'm going to find her."

Nudge's face screwed up in sudden determination and she whipped back around to her computer setup, typing furiously. Valencia pressed her fingers to her mouth, face pinched in thought, free hand clicking her pen furiously. She mumbled through her splayed fingers, looking up at Fang, "You'll need help. We can use the CSM- _crap._"

Nudge and Fang both glanced up at her uncharacteristic slip. She blinked hard, the despair in her eyes replaced by fierce determination. She turned to focus on Nudge. "Did you say you haven't made _any_ headway on the Freeze?"

"No," came the bitingly short reply. Nudge pinched her lips together until her face almost looked mouth-less, minimizing all her windows and typing in a new set of commands.

Fang squinted, trying to decipher Nudge's code from across the room. "What the hell are you working on, anyway?" _What's more important than this?_ He thumbed a ball of lint in his pocket, jamming it under his fingernail and picking it out again.

Nudge growled and closed the newest window, hammering out another string of code and starting a new program.

Dr. Martinez shook her head, features pulled taught with worry. "There's some sort of virus that hit the entire CSM server bank. We've determined that it's malicious and targeted, but we can't figure out who wrote it or how to stop it."

Fang looked at Val, eyebrows hitched slightly in surprise. "Malicious?"

Val nodded tiredly. "It's not a simple Trojan or spyware. From what I'm being told, it's crippled literally every facet of the CSM, nationwide. Documents are reading as corrupted, our surveillance programs are failing, even all the bank accounts are frozen. This thing is unprecedented." Her click pen flew out of her hand, skittering under the desk.

Nudge glanced over her shoulder and rolled her eyes, toeing for the pen and kicking it across the floor towards Valencia. "The only thing that works is the email, since that's hosted by Network Connections, and like half of those are anonymous threats demanding that we send them all the old Itex research on genetics." She shuddered in disgust. "Which we would never do, duh, and even if we wanted to, we couldn't, because the stupid virus is locking up all the files!" Her flat hand slammed against her desk, knocking the keyboard askew. She straightened it quickly and went right back to typing.

Fang felt like his stomach dropped to the floor. "Then the CSM can't help to track down Max and the others," he stated flatly.

Val took a shuddering breath, standing up slowly with her click pen in hand. "I'm so sorry, Fang." She turned towards him, squeezing his shoulder, eyes swimming with regret. "I don't have access to anything that would help. Not until we can get this virus under control."

Fang chewed on the inside of his cheek and turned to Nudge. Val was right. He needed help. "How soon can you get out of here?"

Nudge frowned, hammering out a few more lines of code before turning to Fang nervously, manicured brows drawn. "You should try going to Angel and Gaz. I really think I'll do you more good here, Fang." His eyes widened in surprise, hardening as anger flickered through him.

Nudge shot up a finger to stop him in his tracks. She pushed out from her desk and leaned towards him, elbows on her knees. "Think about it. If I can get to the bottom of this bug and unfreeze our assets, we'll be right behind you." Her face lit up. "We'll be the cavalry! I've just...I've gotta figure this out. I'm the best chance they have at getting the servers back up without losing data."

Fang frowned, staring at the scuffed rubber toes of his sneakers and trying fiercely to come up with some sort of plan. Nudge wasn't being arrogant, she was being realistic, and if she could debug the system, finding Max would be a hell of a lot easier.

Val reached for his shoulder again, tilting her head to look up at him with pleading eyes. "Do you even know where to look?"

Fang shrugged helplessly. "Unless you can think of any evil labs in Bern, I've got nothing. When I saw Dylan, he was crammed in a kennel in this concrete room, probably underground. No windows. I didn't see what was outside."

"Bern, Bern, Bern...," Nudge muttered, still typing furiously.

Val reeled back a little in shock. "You said you..._saw _Dylan?" Her head tilted to one shoulder, brows wrinkled in confusion. "While you were in Africa?"

Fang scratched widely across his scalp, leaving his hair standing at ends. "After. Well, I saw him there, too, but he went MIA at the beginning of the week. And then I had the vision...dream _thing_. Last night, after I was home." Val drew back and Fang wanted to groan in frustration. "I know it sounds crazy, I don't know how, I just...saw him. I keep thinking maybe it's like Max's Voice. Maybe it's another new ability."

He ignored Val's crushingly doubtful frown, instead focusing on a strip of peeling rubber on his left toe. He ran through everything he could remember, everything that he had seen behind closed eyelids, and grimaced when he felt the persistent ebb of his nauseating headache returning. "There were other things in there with him. Five or six big furry animals, in the other cages. And Dylan was wearing a collar thing on his neck. And there was a shipping box that said 'Bern.'"

"But you didn't see Max and Iggy?" Val asked cautiously.

Fang growled, his defenses flaring, "How many people do you think are after us? It's not like we've got swarms of mad scientists head-hunting us. Not anymore."

Val winced and shook her head, looking utterly exasperated. "Fang, I want to believe you, God knows I do. But-"

"Oh! Bern!" Nudge exclaimed, pushing back from her desk with bright eyes and spinning with her toes dragging on the floor. "Dr. M, isn't that where ter Borcht ended up? Someone in surveillance was just telling me how he bought up an old kennel and a bunch of dogs in the middle of Switzerland."

"Saint Bernards," Fang mumbled, mind already whirring through the idea of ter Borcht going after them again. After eight years?

"Yeah, that's it, Saint Bernards!" Nudge's hair bounced as her head pistonned up and down.

Fang ran his thumb along his fingernail, a wave of certainty quelling the churning of his stomach. "They're there. They've got to be there." He met Valencia's eyes, determined. "Have you got hard copy files anywhere? Anything with ter Borcht's address on it?"

Val nodded. "I think so. I'll run down to Surveillance and see what they have."

Fang watched her go before turning back to Nudge. He observed her for a minute, once again hunched over her keyboard. Slender, dark fingers flew madly across the keys, russet eyes tracking all three screens.

"You're gonna stay here?"

She answered without looking up. "I'm sure, Fang. I'm the best we've got, and if I can get CSM operational again, it'll be a bazillion times more helpful than what I'd be able to give you on my own. It's not like I'm in shape for butt-kicking anymore. Anyway, I'm serious about calling Angel and Gazzer. They'll be ready to go with you in a heartbeat."

"No." Fang felt steely resolve filter through him. He could get this done. He had his Imperceptibility, and maybe the dream power thing on his side. The kids had GPAs over 4.0 and lacrosse jerseys. "This'll work better as a one-man job. In and out."

Nudge shot him a harsh glare and he almost faltered, scuffing his shoe on the dirty linoleum. "It'll be expensive enough without CSM support. And the kids have finals next week. They're drowning in textbooks by now." He knew it was a weak excuse. Angel was going after her masters in psych at sixteen and the Gasman, though unfocused, could run circles around his professors. They'd ace their finals, like always. Truth was, they were still The Kids. They would _always _be kids to Fang. His baby sister and brother. Even the thought of bringing them along made him squirm.

Nudge gave him a long-suffering stare, and he wondered if she could see right through him. "You do realize that Angel's already older than Max was when we brought Itex to ashes? And Gazzy's legally an adult. It's not like they're incapable, Fang."

Fang stared blankly through the glass wall, hedging. "I'll do it alone. It's fine."

Nudge scoffed, "It's _Max and Iggy._ If someone's after us again, they have the right to choose how they're gonna help! Man up, Fang."

He scowled sullenly, turning to stare into Nudge's incriminating glare. "_You_ tell them what's up. I'm getting on the first plane to Max." He shifted his weight from heel to heel, wishing Val would come back already so he could get out of here. He could barely breathe. He needed to _go_.

Nudge searched his face furiously. "Don't be like this, Fang. This... This completely self-centered, _jerk_ version of Fang, where you think you can take on the world and you don't need the rest of us. What happens if you're by yourself and you _fail?"_

Her words hung in the air like an thunderclap, harsh and rumbling and tearing up everything in their path.

Fang blinked rapidly under the sudden onslaught of terror. Failure hadn't crossed his mind until Nudge threw it in his face. Failure meant not rescuing Max.

He flattened his expression with a mighty sniff, ignoring the way Nudge's face fell with pity.

"Fang, I... I'm sorry," she whispered. "I still think you're being a complete moron about it, but I get that it's hard. It's been so long since anything like this happened, and you and Max were safe in your happy little bubble, and now it's popped and she's _gone_, and Iggy, too, and you're missing your wife and your best friend and _holy moly_ that sucks, Fang."

She twisted her pursed lips into a forced, wry smile, but the pity was still there, behind her eyes. "At least it's _Max, _you know? If she's really been taken by ter Borcht, you know she's giving him hell." Her grin faded into a worried stare. "I'm going to kick this stupid Freeze virus in the butt."

_If she's really been taken..._ Fang shoved down the knot in his stomach and stood up a little straighter, just in time to meet Valencia's eyes as she reentered the room with a hastily torn sheet of notebook paper.

"Here you go. It's not much, but it's an address and a business name. They promised me this was still current."

Fang scanned the page before folding it twice and shoving it into his back pocket, turning to go.

Val caught him by the arm. "Promise me you'll be careful, mijo? Whatever you find? And keep us updated, okay? I expect a phone call as soon as you know what you're dealing with."

Fang searched her gaze. Worry was written plain as day in her soft brown eyes. Expressive eyes. _Max's eyes._ "I'm going to find her." His voice sounded ten times more confident than he felt.

Val's upper lip crumpled as she twisted her face into a forced smirk. "You'd better, buster."

"It's Max. She'll be alright." Fang leveled his gaze at Val, aiming for comforting. He was fighting to convince himself as much as he was trying to convince her. He nodded once before turning to go, leaving behind a distracted Nudge and heading back towards the stairwell. He wove his way through the crippled office, toying with the edges of the paper Val had given him inside his pocket and making his short list.

_One. Get on the soonest flight to Switzerland._

_Two. Find ter Borcht's kennel-turned-evil-scientist-lair._

_Three. Rescue Max. And Iggy. _

_And Dylan._

The sidewalk had emptied out considerably, now that lunch was over, but a few shocked stares followed Fang as he elbowed his way out of the office building and leapt up into the air. He was halfway to the airport and breathing hard when his phone vibrated angrily in his pocket. He frowned, fumbling blindly until the vibrating stopped.

_Four. Convince Dayburn not to fire him for missing work. _

* * *

**A/N: **I'd love to know what _you_ think is going to happen in Bern. What will Fang find? What do you _want_ to see happen? I mean, it's already written and ready to post, but I want to know what you think anyway!


	8. Chapter 7 - St Bernards

**A/N: **Thanks to Nola96, j4bb3rwocky, thestupidgenius1123, hisgirltuesday, Teresa, and KLoves2Read for taking the time to review. No plans for Omega in this story, but there's plenty else to happen yet. I am THRILLED that everyone loves Nudge so much. I love the relationship she and Fang have, and they are quickly becoming my favorite pair to write. We'll see some more of her down the line, but first, Fang's got to get his ass to Switzerland:

* * *

**CHAPTER 7 - ST. BERNARDS**

Fang pried his fingers from the edge of his seat cushion-slash-flotation device for what was probably the thirtieth time. The flight to his connection in Atlanta was two hours worth of eternity, during which he made a percussive mantra out of the time differences between flying in a flimsy tin can and flying by feather. His fingertips drummed it out against his pant leg as he stared blankly at the groaty plastic air valve in the cabin ceiling.

He didn't mind airplanes when he was traveling for work. His schedules were flexible and all he had to do was show up and shoot. But with two of his family missing (and Dylan), he was hard-pressed to quit grinding his molars while he waited for the plane to finish coasting down the tarmac.

Max was missing, potentially for four days at this point. Of course, she was _Max, _which meant that whatever ter Borcht threw at her, she would spit it right back in his face. Fang held onto the image of a fiery-eyed Max bullying a cowering ter Borcht into a corner just by talking smack. She'd more than hold her own until he showed up, the cavalry in black, to incapacitate the team of scientists. Maybe Fang would lock _them_ in a cage, see how they liked it. He'd sick Interpol on the whole operation and do a U and A with his wife and his best friend at his heels. He nodded to himself as he shouldered through the narrow aisle, caught up in the crowd as tired people pushed and shoved through the gate into the terminal. He felt weightless without his normal duffle and camera bag. Weightless without Max.

He had two stagnant hours between flights that he filled with a handful of protein bars for which he paid through the nose. It was probably his last meal for a while, considering his plan to find the kennel as soon as the plane's landing gear scraped across the pavement in Switzerland. He tore through cheap wrappers and chalky bites of chocolate-flavored power food, slouching in a bucket seat between a stern grandmotherly-type and a little kid with a half-naked Barbie and a hairbrush.

The third time his phone buzzed against his thigh in his pocket, he stifled a groan and stared hatefully at Marty Dayburn's name before giving in and swiping 'Accept.'

"Where the _fuck_ are you, Ride?"

Fang jerked the phone away from his ear, wilting under an icy glare from Granny before slipping out of his seat and going to stand by the floor to ceiling windows.

"Marty."

"First thing, you said. Said you'd be in my office first thing. And now it's half an hour past end of day. I haven't even seen a single hair on your ass, let alone the report you promised. Do you know how many schmucks would kill to be a photographer for _National?_ Do you even want this job, Ride?"

Fang felt his face slip into his typical cool stare, shutting the world out while he tried to refocus from the tightness in his chest to the resigned anger that his dick of a boss inspired. "Of course." He spoke evenly, clenching his phone a little harder than he needed to.

"Then it's time to start acting like it." Marty paused to suck in a growling breath. "I'm going to give you a chance to redeem yourself, Ride, and you'd better not fall through. There's a new assignment in New York, in the city. I'll email you the details, you'll get your ass there by tomorrow morning, and you'll photograph every fuckin' thing that moves until you've got the story."

Fang's teeth ground together. He paced in two-step circles, shoving a half-eaten protein bar into his pocket and picking at it mercilessly, digging crumbs under his fingernails. "Can't, Marty. Got a family emergency."

"I don't give a rat's ass about your family drama, Nick. Tomorrow morning, New York. Be there."

Anger burned behind Fang's eyes, shifting the terminal from stuffy to stifling. He cared about his job, and his old boss saw that, but his old boss also would have let it slide if Fang had a personal issue to take care of. And this was so much more important.

_"Attention, please. Flight 3752 to Bern is now boarding-"_

"Marty!" Fang cut off whatever angry vitriol Marty was spewing. "I've gotta go. My flight's boarding."

"Your flight? Your _flight?_ Where the hell are you, Ride? That had better be a flight to Newark, or so help me-"

"I'll be in Monday."

Dayburn's obscene protests were cut short by the 'End Call' button. There was a trash can a few paces away where Fang turned out his crumb-filled pocket. He watched apathetically as the tasteless remnants tumbled down between a greasy napkin and somebody's busted earbuds, promising himself that he'd take Max out for burgers when this was all over.

The queue for the overnight flight to the Alps moved quickly. Once he was buckled in and leaning with his forehead against the fingerprint-covered window, he tried to make himself sleep. He didn't have much of a plan after 'find ter Borcht's evil kennel,' and he couldn't decide anything useful without seeing what he was working with. How much security did he have? How many whitecoats he had amassed to do whatever sick, twisted experiments he'd planned under the shoddy guise of research?

Making himself rest was the only thing Fang _could_ do, and it came with the added bonus of forcing a break from the churning in his stomach.

He woke for the fifth time with a jerk, swiping at his face with his forearm and blinking bleary-eyed at the flashing seatbelt sign. There was a shuddering scrape as the landing gear lowered and locked into place, and before long the fuzzy green tree tops had branches and the smooth tarmac was marred with cracks and stray stones and bright white feathers from a bird that met an untimely end.

As soon as he could, Fang unclasped his seatbelt and stood with the rest of the passengers, twisting to pop his joints and get some blood flowing back into his legs and wings. He didn't do the work to fly out here, but his legs were just as rubbery as if he had.

Fang made his way through customs with the business-sharp airport morning crowd, hands in his pockets, flashing his _National Geographic_ ID and passport when needed. He snagged a free map of the city before climbing onto the next bus into town. The fine muscles in his wings tensed and twitched as he looked out at the beckoning sky, but big airports meant vigilant air traffic controllers and low-flying planes. He was not interested in finding out whether his Imperceptibility extended to radar pings, or being held back so he could explain his feathers to security.

By the time the loop bus screeched to a stop and unceremoniously spit out its jetlagged passengers, Fang had a good idea of where he needed to go. He idly followed a group of college kids towards a train station, ducking back when he saw the right kind of spot. It only took a few power downstrokes to get himself in the air.

Finding ter Borcht's place was disconcertingly easy. It was clearly marked with a friendly-looking sign, was situated in a decent part of town, and had an unassuming red-brick storefront with flower boxes under the windows, boxes and shutters painted to match the bright blue door. It was actually kind of quaint_._

Fang circled above twice before flipping that subtle mental switch, wrapping himself in his Imperceptibility. He was lost to the world. He was invisible and inaudible. He disappeared between a shadow and a sunray and descended the few hundred feet to the sidewalk below, landing hard on the concrete. He tried to peer through the windows, but his view of the interior was obstructed by shelves of kibble in-between shiny new dog crates. He took a deep breath as the ghosts of his nightmare childhood danced eerily behind his eyes. The spine-tingling sense of dread was quickly shoved down when a clueless customer left the shop, swinging the door wide open.

Fang was inside before the cheerful bell fell silent.

And there, seated at a cluttered desk in the far corner of the shop in a completely underwhelming display, was ter Borcht himself. He'd shrunk with age, now thinner and liver-spotted with papery skin bunching over his wrinkly knuckles. Fang's lip curled in disgust as he watched the madman yawn obscenely, removing his glasses to rub at his temple before staring blankly at the wall, right through Fang's chest.

Fang flinched reflexively and had to consciously force himself to breathe. His Imperceptibility was fun for pranking Max, or when he wanted to be left alone when they were out and Max was being social. It was a cool party trick. He'd never had to rely on it like this, not when it was life or death.

Ter Borcht's face crumpled into a thoughtful scowl, glaring daggers at Fang's knees, before lifting his eyes to the ceiling tiredly. He reclined in his chair with a groaning sigh, laced his fingers across his concave stomach, and let his eyes fall shut.

His breathing deepened and fell steady, lips parted in sleep, and Fang finally dragged his eyes away to really take a look around. The storefront really was just a storefront. No heinous lab equipment in plain sight. No hordes of minion whitecoats lingering in the corners. No Itex logo stamped anywhere. Just ter Borcht.

His desk was crowded with a hundred different papers; invoices and order forms and advertisements for heart worm medication, all arranged in straight piles around a glossy black pencil cup and a crystal ashtray filled with paperclips instead of cigarette butts. Fang squinted at the hunk of glass, trying to see past the clips to the _something_ solid buried under them. Counting on the unnatural silence achieved with his Imperceptibility, he padded across the old wooden floor, bracing instinctively for creaks that never came as the floorboards shifted silently under each step he took.

His long fingers sifted silently through the little mound of cold metal bits, paperclips flicking in and out of sight as he glossed over them, until his middle finger hooked through the ring of a small set of keys. Fang inspected them briefly before dropping them into his pocket and turning to catalog the rest of the shop.

Hidden behind racks of supplies were two doors. One had the tattered edge of worn Berber carpet fraying out from beneath, and the ancient gloss finish on the smooth round knob was worn to dark swaths of the brass underneath. It had no lock. The other had graying beige paint chipping beneath the industrial lever handle and covering half of the deadbolt. It was recessed down a small flight of two steps and had a brown plastic plaque in the center that read '_die Hunde_.' The rhythmic hush of deep breathing and a light scuffling was barely audible from within.

He took one more glance at ter Borcht. Just to make sure the snores were real. The man's chin had dipped until it was digging into his chest, face half-hidden by his finely-striped lapel. He was down for the count.

Fang turned away and walked towards the dog door. His breath caught in his throat, muscles coiling in anticipation.

_Max is down there. _

He felt it beating through his body with his blood.

He wrapped his fingers around the handle carefully, rotating the handle down smoothly. He eased the door open and slipped into the dark room, helping the door shut behind him.

The door clicked softly. Fang blinked, eyes tight as they adjusted to the dim lighting. Concrete walls came into focus, dark and mottled with stains. He had to blink a few more times before he could make out the sleeping, furry lumps behind chain-link gates, but he recognized the lime-covered drain in the center of the floor right away. He'd seen it in his dream.

He scanned the kennels again. They were just dogs. No Max. No Iggy. Maybe they were being kept in the upstairs apartment. Fang moved cautiously toward the far end of the room, towards the place where he had seen Dylan behind his shut eyelids before he passed out.

Sure enough, huddled in the corner and fast asleep, was the man himself. Fang took one last glance at the door behind him and dropped his Imperceptibility. He stepped through the grungy light cast by a flickering, bare bulb hanging from the ceiling and crouched down, leaning in with his fingers hooked through the chain links.

"Psst," he hissed. Dylan began to stir. "Where are the others?"

Dylan grunted, still half-asleep, and turned slowly. He blinked, bleary-eyed, before straightening sharply in recognition.

"You're here!" he spoke softly. Not softly enough. He recoiled under Fang's pointed stare.

"Yeah," Fang grunted under his breath. Dylan's slow return to consciousness was a bitter reminder that he'd never been on the run like the rest of the Flock. Hadn't grown up in fear. Hadn't learned to be on guard, always.

Fang zoned in on the padlock on the gate and fingered the keys that hung around his middle finger, flipping them around the ring like he knew which one he needed before filling the keyhole with the key he landed on. He smirked when the padlock clicked open easily, sliding it from the chains and swinging the door open wide. "C'mon."

Dylan just stared at him, squinty-eyed in the dark. One of the dogs let out a long, low whine in its sleep.

Fang growled and stood up, gesturing towards the door that led to the storefront and the cat-napping kidnapper.

"We've gotta move."

"How did you get in here without getting caught?" Dylan was shaking his head slowly, thoughts still sleepy-sluggish. Fang was about ready to shake him awake. He strode swiftly forward, closing the distance between him and Dylan, wings flaring slightly.

"Ter Borcht is sleeping. We're on borrowed time. We gotta _move_."

Dylan yawned again. Fang rolled his eyes and grabbed Dylan roughly by the arm, pulling him to his feet and turning to drag him from the kennel.

"Dude, quit!" Dylan was suddenly wide awake and struggling frantically, wrenching his arm from Fang's grasp and stumbling backwards until he hit the wall.

Fang stared at him, wide-eyed and incredulous. "Do you _not_ want to get rescued?"

Dylan scoffed and thrust his thumb at the ring of metal and plastic around his neck. "Not unless you can get this off. The thing's electrified. It'll fry me."

_Not my problem,_ Fang thought as he took in the thick collar, suddenly much more imposing than it had looked in the vision. The small square panel glowed blue and he could just barely see rows of conduction points lining the inside, ready to shock Dylan.

He scrubbed his palm across his jaw, searching for a quick solution and coming up miserably short.

_"Shit."_


	9. Chapter 8 - Pips and Needles

**CHAPTER 8: PIPS AND NEEDLES**

Fang cursed his clammy, trembling fingers as he worked to pry the collar off of Dylan. The pilfered keys fanned out on the floor next to the cracking soles of his black Vans where he was kneeling just inside of the chain link door, working on the electric-tracking-binding-collar-thing that kept Dylan trapped inside the open cell. Every few moments, Fang froze and cocked one ear toward the kennel door. Ter Borcht was no longer napping, judging by the inconsistent shuffling noises coming from the shop.

"Dude, be careful!" Dylan hissed as he strained away from the shaking screwdriver in Fang's white-knuckle hands.

"I got it," Fang growled as a tiny piece of the fiberglass finally began to crack. He paused to swipe his palms roughly across his thighs and renewed his grip on the device. With a grunt and shaking forearms, the flathead finally severed the tiny computer from the collar and Dylan fell back with a cry.

"Shh!" Fang snapped and clamped his hand over Dylan's mouth. The pair froze on the cold, dirty floor, listening to the faltering footsteps on the other side of the door. Dylan's eyes bugged and tracked along the cracked wall with each creak of the floorboards, nostrils flared with heavy breaths. Fang's eyes were shut, face slack in the picture of calm, but his fingers made four depressions in the skin around Dylan's mouth.

Fang's eyes flashed open when he heard Dylan's sigh and the scrape of a desk chair accompanied by the dull thump of a weight falling into it. Dylan leaned away from Fang's hand and whispered, "Okay, what's next?"

Fang's head snapped towards him and he spoke with a hushed voice, "Where are the others?"

Dylan frowned. "The others?"

Fang nodded, undeterred. "Iggy? And Max? Is there a second kennel somewhere?" He scrutinized the cinderblock wall, trying to hear through inches of concrete whether there was anyone on the other side.

Dylan shook his head slowly from left to right, brows furrowed. "Fang, it's just me. I've been here on my own for like a week." At Fang's unbelieving stare, he shrugged helplessly. "I looked. With my _Sight_, I mean. I haven't seen anyone here but the dogs, that angry doctor, and a couple of delivery drivers."

Fang felt the cold tendrils of forgotten facts tripping along the shadowy back wall of his mind, just out of reach. "Sight?"

"It's been a long time. I don't blame you for forgetting." Dylan shifted onto the balls of his feet and balanced with his fingertips spread on the floor. "Whatever Hans did to me made me able to See...geez, almost anything. Anyone, as long as I know where to look." He grinned wryly and sneered. "At least he did _something _useful. It developed a few years ago, too. I can See, but I can also _be Seen._"

The lingering imprints of the weird vision he'd had two nights ago washed through Fang's thoughts. He'd been standing in this very kennel, watching Dylan point to the smudged address on that scrappy box label. "That's how I knew where you were," he realized aloud. Dylan nodded emphatically.

"I showed you. I thought..." He trailed off and caught his breath. Both men looked to the door. Footsteps stopped just outside the stairwell and something creaked. Fang hardly drew breath before the footsteps finally retreated, fading away.

When Dylan continued, it was barely voiced. "I knew where to Look for you, and I thought I had a chance if I could show you where I was."

Fang eyed Dylan appraisingly, a million thoughts on the tip of his tongue. Like how just two weeks ago, before the CSM meeting Max dragged him to, he wouldn't have cared. Or how he maybe only cared now because Max had disappeared. And he wondered why Dylan chose _him_, and not Max, to accost with the vision. Why not Max?

"Can you see M-"

This time, it was Dylan's hand over Fang's mouth as piercing turquoise eyes fixed on the kennel door.

"He knows," Dylan mouthed.

The wooden stairs down into the split-level kennel creaked _danger_. The handle swung down with a rattle and a scrape. Fang yanked his Imperceptibility over himself, vanishing in half a breath. He made a grab for Dylan's arm to hide him, too, but Dylan wasn't there.

With a primal shout, Dylan launched himself at the Good Doctor.

"You idiot!" Fang shouted uselessly from beneath his shroud of silence. He watched, shocked, as ter Borcht stepped nimbly to the side and shoved a taser against the base of Dylan's spine. Dylan gave a strangled cry and fell, a useless heap of feathers and bones on the floor. The dogs cowered pitifully against the back wall with a cacophony of whimpering whines.

Fang froze, mind razor-focused on Dylan's lifeless slump, until he picked up the sound of the stunned pulse still beating in Dylan's chest. The relief made him light-headed.

Adrenaline had been steadily building in his system since he snuck through the storefront. Now, it spread like wildfire with each resounding heartbeat. He stared ahead, unblinking, coiling his muscles and raising his feathers to make himself big and imposing, even though no one could see.

Ter Borcht scuffed his shoe against Dylan's limp form and fingered the tangerine he held in his other hand. He coughed out a dry laugh and turned to survey the kennel with narrowed eyes. "I know that you are here." His accent was thicker than it had been eight years ago, ruining fricatives like a cringe-worthy Siegfried.

He stepped further into the dim room, not three feet from where Fang crouched, and scowled past him into the dark corners. "I know about your ability to remain unseen. Perhaps that is why Gunther-Hagen has not yet found you." His twiggy fingers worked at the tangerine, peeling off little sections of orange skin with yellowing nails and littering the floor with flicks of his thumb.

Fang's lips curled in a snarl but he stayed put. His invisibility was buying him tie. He needed a plan. He was physically far ahead of ter Borcht, but the taser was bad news. If he could just get it away from the old man's grasp, he could throw dear old Borchy into one of the chain-link compartments, grab Dylan, and get the Hell out of Dodge. Of course, without Dylan, he could easily slip behind ter Borcht unnoticed, but he hadn't come all this way to leave a man behind. Even if it was Dylan. And now, with what Dylan had said about his Sight, Fang couldn't help the hope that he would be able to help find Max.

He blinked down stupidly at a piece of tangerine peel that had bounced off his knee onto the floor in front of him. The significance of the wrinkled pip took a split-second too long to register. Fang snapped his head up, eyes wide. Ter Borcht's triumphant leer mocked him from behind the taser, but all Fang could see were the prongs aimed point-blank at his face.

"Found you," he sneered. He squeezed the trigger.

Fang jerked roughly to the side, ducking into a roll and crying out when one of the taser probes latched onto the fleshy part of his wing. He felt his Imperceptibility drop like a curtain with cut cables and he arched wildly on his side, clawing over his shoulder to remove the electrified burr.

Ter Borcht cackled cruelly. He kicked Fang in the stomach before turning back towards the shop. He left the door open and climbed the steps to go rummage in his desk.

Fang fought the lurch of his stomach, gasping like a fish out of water and breaking out in a cold sweat. With shock-whitened fingers, he found the stupid probe and ripped it out of his wing along with a handful of feathers.

He gave himself two seconds to regroup. He swallowed bile, pulling his wings in protectively along his spine. It wasn't until he stood up and almost tripped over his dragging primary feathers that he realized the tasered limb was number than a dead duck, and just as useless.

He knelt next to Dylan, feeling for a pulse. Dylan's heart beat warm beneath Fang's fingers. He dropped his hand and straightened up with grim determination.

Dylan groaned beneath his feet.

The metallic scuffling over by the desk went silent.

Fang rolled his head on his shoulders with a sick crack, swallowed down his anxious stomach. One more breath then and he took a massive step up the half-flight of stairs, swinging around the corner towards the doctor.

There was a single satisfying moment when ter Borcht's eyes widened at the sight of Fang, dark and furious, his wing flopping behind him like a macabre battle standard.

Then the bird man was on top of him with a shout and a flash of fists and something hollow tinkled across the floor. The frantic baying of the dogs echoed from the bowels of the kennel. The pair scuffled disjointedly, shoes kicking, fists flying, yellowed nails scratching.

The doctor cried out harshly, one arm raised to his face and the other reaching across the floor to scrabble for a blue liquid-filled cylinder.

Fang saw the old man's fist come hurtling towards his shoulder and bore down into it, spitting into his face, "You don't have it in you, Doc."

"Look out!" Dylan shouted over the harsh barking.

Fang stiffened, not sure what to look out for. He hadn't felt the short needle sink through his pants and into his thigh, but the cold cramping liquid that shot fire through his veins as ter Borcht depressed the plunger on that little blue cylinder made him feel...made him feel...

Nothing.

Fang's leg seized up with invisible flames and then it was gone, a sack of flesh that he couldn't feel hanging limply from his torso.

Dylan scrambled up the steps towards them, pale as the moon.

Fang twisted across his numb leg to fling his arms around ter Borcht's skinny frame. "Tie him up!" he yelled and gripped tighter. The numbness kept creeping, slithering up his hip and towards his other leg.

"With what?" Dylan implored frantically, yanking open desk drawers haphazardly as ter Borcht raged, flopping like a fish in Fang's arms.

"Zip ties, your t-shirt, whatever!" Fang growled and lost his other leg and half of his torso to the creeping Numb.

Ter Borcht scrabbled relentlessly, clawing and hissing 'scheiße, scheiße, scheiße' over and over.

The corners of the room spotted over, hazed with black. Fang's shoulders went numb like his arms fell off, and everything fell still and silent as he slipped out of consciousness.

* * *

**A/N: ****Thanks to Nola96 for your speedy review, as always! I guess this is kind of turning into a suspense/mystery, with a few spots of action here and there? I'm glad the feeling of the suspense is there for you. There's some action in this chapter, which I _loved_ writing (can I write only fights forevermore?), so I hope it pleases.**

**I'd love to hear the rest of your thoughts on the previous chapter and this one, especially if there's something that worked well or DIDN'T work well. I'm writing to get better at writing, but also to entertain you all, and feedback helps with that. It also nudges me to write faster, which is good for you, because it means I can volley extra chapters (like this one) at you.**


	10. Chapter 9 - What ter Borcht Did

**CHAPTER 9 - WHAT TER BORCHT DID**

Fang groaned gutturally between clenched teeth, eyelids unnaturally heavy, with his brain trying to squeeze out through his ears. He cracked one eye and saw a blurry, chiseled jaw hovering in front of him.

"Wha-" He gagged and slouched over to heave fruitlessly over the varnished wood floor. He only managed a thin stream of spittle and wished his stomach would give it up already if it meant relief. Someone pressed a damp towel into his hand and he grasped it feebly. He nearly dropped it when he brought it up to his face and weakly pressed the cooling terry cloth against his lips.

Meanwhile, he struggled to string scattered thoughts together. _Report!_ Max's voice demanded from the back of his mind.

He forced himself into awareness. He was propped against the wall with legs spread straight before him, tasered wing half-folded awkwardly at his side. Most of the drug-induced Numb was gone, save for a persistent patch on top of his thigh where the needle had pierced his skin. He sat up and cringed at the dull jelly feeling where his injured wing and his shoulder intersected. His head lolled on his shoulders until he was staring at the thing, relieved when he could make it move and completely weirded out by the lack of sensation.

"Can't feel m'wing," he mumbled and let his head fall back against the wall with a dull thud. He let out a shaky breath, flexing his fingers into the hand towel and feeling their strength returning.

"Be glad. My body feels like someone doused me in gasoline and lit a match."

Fang glanced over to where Dylan was perched on the edge of the desk, arms folded across his chest. He groaned, eyes slipping shut.

"I wish I had."

At the hateful jab, Fang peeled his eyelids open again and fixed drug-glazed, steel-dark eyes on ter Borcht's bruise-blemished face. The doctor was sitting in the spindly plastic desk chair, straining against the industrial zip ties locking his wrists and ankles to the anodized aluminum limbs.

"Are you alright, man?" Dylan's voice wavered with concern as he shifted his hips against the metal edge of the desk top.

Fang took a deep breath and pushed himself off the wall, pulling his legs up from behind the knees with shaky arms. "Fine," he grunted and fisted the trembling terry cloth, using it to wipe the sticky sick feeling from the back of his neck.

"Look, you've been out for a little while. I called Interpol and let them know our situation, but I'm not sure how much longer they'll be-"

"How long?"

"How long what?"

"How long have I been out?" Fang reached around his shoulder to try and fold his dud wing back into place. At least that way, he wouldn't injure it while he waited for the weird jelly-numbness to subside.

He really hoped it didn't stay numb.

Of course, it wouldn't stay folded, either, and he quickly gave up. Touching it was starting to burn, anyway, sending fiery ripples across his flesh. That was probably a good sign, right?

"You haven't been unconscious for too long. Fifteen or twenty. Long enough for me to call Interpol and try to get some answers out of this guy." Dylan shrugged and darted his eyes towards where ter Borcht sat, seething, with drawn brows and paper-lips pressed thin.

Fang turned to ter Borcht with a challenging glare, made slightly less impressive by his decision to stay on the floor for now. "Well?"

The ex-whitecoat's eyes flicked to his and then away to stare determinedly at the far wall.

Fang kicked out with his stronger leg, pleased when he jarred ter Borcht's chair enough to gouge the hardwood beneath the legs. The doctor's scowl finally landed on him.

"What the hell kind of operation is this?" Fang challenged.

"I am a breeder, obviously." Ter Borcht sneered.

Fang kicked his chair again with more force. "Why Dylan?"

Ter Borcht's face split in a nasty grin. "Because once I realized he was here, Dylan was an easy target. A weak link." His staccato words were accompanied by little sprays of saliva. He turned his hateful eyes on Dylan's piercing blues, mocking. "Gunther-Hagen was so eager to do all of the hard work for me, to collect the failed experiments for termination, once he realized I had what he wanted but couldn't find for himself. I only had to promise he would have _you _returned to him, safe und sound."

Dylan shoved off the table and stood up straight, towering far above ter Borcht. "I do _not_ belong to him."

Fang rocked up into a crouch, still shaky but finally able to stand. His pins-and-needles wing draped behind him, making him hold his breath. He observed silently as Dylan scowled at the doctor's widening grin.

"He thinks that you are a person. He truly believes that you are his son." Ter Borcht scoffed, narrowing his eyes. "I know better. You are things_;_ DNA und misused resources. Disgusting abominations that we should have _never_ allowed to continue past ten jähren." He looked disdainfully at Fang, taunting, "The avian subjects should have been terminated fourteen years ago, if _Batchelder_ had not been so weak_._" Jeb's name dripped with contempt as it slithered out of ter Borcht's lips like unnoticed incontinence.

"Where are the others?" Fang demanded quietly, fixing ter Borcht with a hardened stare.

The doctor sneered, "I do not know. It matters not to me _where_ he wanted to keep you, as long as he delivered you for termination."

Dylan was shaking, irate, and interrupted with a snarl. "I am _more_ than what he made me to be. We," he jabbed a finger in Fang's direction, "are _more_ than what you say we are. You can't just get rid of us like...like _garbage_!"

Fang gripped Dylan's elbow, silently urging him to calm down and shut the hell up.

But ter Borcht completely lost his mind, shouting over the renewed chorus of the agitated dogs below, "You are a thousand times worse than garbage! You are nothing! You und that filthy CSM! So why is it that I am hiding like a coward in mein Vaterland while the products of my life's work are gallivanting about, tearing down the towers of knowledge that my life was built upon?" He spat spittle and blood onto the ground at Fang's feet. Fang was disturbed and elated when a tooth clattered out with it. "You deserve death. But my hands are tied; all I can do is freeze your pitiful assets-"

"You wrote the virus?" Fang rounded on ter Borcht, shoulders squared, but ter Borcht steamrolled right over him.

"- und pull Gunther-Hagen's puppet strings." He scoffed. "But he is _useless. _He hasn't even secured that _Schlampe _Maximum."

In an instant, Dylan lashed out with a punch and a shout, whipping ter Borcht's head to the side.

Fang shook with rage and felt lightning behind his eyes that painted everything red. "_Rot in hell_," he spat with venom and grabbed Dylan's arm roughly, turning to go and dragging the taller man along with him.

Ter Borcht's enraged cry filled the room behind them as they picked their way around rotating displays of magazines and pamphlets with grinning dogs plastered across the front in glossy ink. "You have cost me everything, you dummes Huhn! You have stripped me of my dignity, trampled on my manhood, und left me with nichts!"

Fang froze. Dylan pried at the fingers digging into his arm and muttered under his breath, "He's not worth it."

Fang spoke anyway, low and dangerous, feathers bristling and shooting burning pain through his dragging wing. "You lost your dignity the second you chose to treat _children_ like toys."

"Cretin! You are the sick product of someone's imagination! Walking money with feathers for brains!"

Fang broke away from Dylan with a growl, good wing arched behind him in a terrifying display of size. He loped towards ter Borcht, towering over him and staring fiercely. "I am a man, and you are nothing like one."

Ter Borcht took quick little breaths through flaring nostrils. His voice cracked when he spoke, laced with contempt but lacking conviction. "_Verpiss dicht_."

"C'mon, man, Interpol's here. Let them deal with it." Dylan's hand hovered at Fang's shoulder, almost touching, before pulling back. "They're going to ask for your statement."

Fang shut his eyes to ter Borcht and turned around to stalk past Dylan. "Tell them I'll write it in."

The little bell tingled happily as he shouldered roughly out of the shop, cursing when his drooping feathers caught in the slamming door. He hurried past the arriving officials toward the delicately flowering bushes along the side of the building, braced one hand on the brick, and doubled over to hurl in the dirt.

He was wishing he'd held onto that damp towel when his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He rolled his eyes at the caller ID but hit 'Accept' anyway.

"Ride! Why the _hell_ aren't you in New York?"

Fang gritted his teeth, uncomfortably sweaty from getting sick in the bushes. He spat to try to rid his mouth of the bitter taste from his stomach while his boss chewed him out over the static.

"Never mind, don't even fucking answer me. I let Africa slide, I let you get away with abusing your personal days, and _all_ I asked was for you to cover the New York assignment for me. And now I find out you never even made it to Newark? If you think you can treat your job like a vacation service, buddy, you better think again."

"I'll be back in town tomorrow. I'll be there Monday. First thing."

"You'd better, Ride. This is your job on the line."

"Yessir," Fang ground out, ending the call without waiting for his boss to reply. He sunk down onto the pavement, leaning against the brickwork storefront to mull over ter Borcht's outburst, but he couldn't make himself focus.

His gaze wandered over to the small crowd that had gathered outside the shop. Dylan was scratching the back of his neck as he talked with Interpol officials in the glaring light of the dying day. Fang wondered whether he'd take some personal time from his work in Africa, or if he'd want to go right back to the airdrop base.

That was about when Dylan's eyes met Fang's over the heads of the officials, slanting crookedly with his nervous grin. He said something with a nod to one of the officials before jogging over to where Fang sat, eyes darting around tensely. "So, when are we heading back to Colorado?"

Fang blinked up at him. His gruff answer took a moment. "What?"

Dylan ruffled his hand through his hair, elbow to the sky. He made a failed attempt at taking a subtle whiff of his armpit, cringing at the smell of a week's worth of captivity, before clearing his throat and fixing Fang with a stubborn look. "I want to come with."

Fang let loose a grumbling sigh and draped his arm across one knee, fingering the smooth edge of his phone. "Why?" But he already knew he didn't have the energy to argue. Dylan could do what he wanted, anyway. Fang had enough on his plate without worrying about where Dylan ended up, too.

Dylan was resolute. "You're missing some people and the psychotic man who made me is after them. I can help."

"You'll have to buy your own ticket." Fang watched Dylan for his reaction, disappointed when he looked unperturbed.

"I've got savings. This is important." He nodded earnestly, mostly to himself, before fixing Fang with his bright blue eyes. Waiting for an answer. For permission.

Fang blinked again. His eyes drifted to stare dully at the phone in his hand. He guessed Dylan could at least fill in the gaps in the CSM's intel on Gunther-Hagen. It would be useful, especially if the computers were still down.

"Fine. Whatever."

Dylan's face split in a toothy grin. "Awesome." He smacked his lips and grimaced. "When we get to the airport, I'm buying a toothbrush."

* * *

**German Notes:**

**"scheisse" = "shit"**

**"jähren" = "years"**

**"Vaterland" = "homeland"**

**"Schlampe" = "slut/tramp"**

** "Sie dummes Huhn" = "you dumb chicken"**

**"nichts" = "nothing"**

**"verpiss dicht" = "piss off"**

* * *

**Author's Notes: **I've placated myself about this chapter by telling myself the "classic villain speech" device works because ter Borcht isn't preceding his nefarious deeds with it, thus giving our heroes an absurd amount of time to stop him and giving away everything in the process. He's being interrogated (poorly, maybe, but whatevs) and is getting angry and spills the beans when he already can't do anything about it.

SO! Now that you've ready this little ter Borcht chapter trilogy, I'd love to know:  
A) Something you think I did well  
B) Something you think I did poorly or could have done better  
C) Something that surprised you (if anything)  
Bonus: Tell me why! I'd love notes on whatever comes to mind. The way I use language, plot devices, character development, dumb grammar mistakes. Any of it. Hit me up. Help make me a better writer.

Chapters 9 and 10 were some of the first to get written when I started this story, and though they've been edited thoroughly since then (with help from KLoves2Read, my wonderful beta), the action scenes are pretty much the same ones that I saw play through my head like a movie reel. When I first decided to write this story, I was worried about writing fight scenes in particular because I've seen so many poorly-done ones where the author's notes complained about how hard it was, but they've ended up being my very favorite to write! I love getting visual with what I'm writing, and while I'm consistently tripped up with facial expressions during dialogue (like typing through molasses, yech), _visualizing_ the staging for how a scene plays out is easy for me.

Okay, before I write responses to reviews, let's talk about **Dylan's Sight.** You'll get some answers about how it works _now, _in _this_ story, in the next chapter, but even in the canon stories one of Dylan's weird mutant abilities is that he can see things that other people can't. Max describes it in 'Nevermore' according to the internet (because I don't wanna reread it - maybe ever), as "like the Hubble Space Telescope." The Voice describes it to Max in 'Fang,' saying that "he can see things happening far away, can see people across oceans - maybe even across time." I have taken license to ignore the "across time" crap for this story, because JP never actually expands upon it I don't think, and the Voice doesn't necessarily have all the answers. (I refuse to believe that "Angel did it" is an acceptable answer - it just feels like a cop-out. Sorry, JP, but it does.) The best evidence of Dylan seeing things before they happen is him seeing shooting stars before they appear to the rest of the Flock - but that's only 'cause he can see far ("I actually _can_ see the International Space Station" -Dylan in 'Fang').

So the long and short is, yes, it's canon, and yes, I've made it into something more. Kind of like I've done with Fang's 'invisibility.'

**fleeceinabox**, I love that you love the way I write action. I love writing it. =) Thanks for reviewing!

**Bookwriter16**, thank you so much, I'm glad you're enjoying it!

**Nola96**, yes, the Dylan power thing is weird. I've tried to address that in my authors note above, since a lot of people had questions about it. It's something that JP established in canon and then never bothered to explain or use beyond Dylan looking at shooting stars. Which is kind of terrible of him, I think, because Dylan's power is hella confusing.

**hisgirltuesday**, thank you as always for the thoughtful feedback. I did put all the German translations at the end of this chapter, since I had so many. Thank you especially for the good note on the pacing of chapter 8. That was one of the things I wasn't sure about when I did my last edit, so to have you confirm that it moves well is great. You made me lol with the comment about Dylan, too. He's like this big golden retriever, eager and lovable and kinda dumb.

**KLoves2Read**, thank goodness you can see the difference, haha. I was worried while I was doing it that it would make the story too heavy, but I think it worked out fine in the end. It's crazy how fast the switch flipped in my brain, though, now even when I'm writing new stuff I get tripped up a little. I think it'll be really good for me in the long run, though. Anyway, I hope you're not too bummed that I got rid of all the German accent-y things that we worked on. I decided it was distracting and unnecessary, and with the actual german vocabulary I put in, I think it's enough.

**j4bb3rwocky**, 'solid writing,' I'll take it. Thanks for your behind-the-scenes encouragement. I'd say sorry for not killing Fang off, but I'm not. I'm trying to keep the story moving (I'm glad it's working), and you're about to get some more Dylan, too. I'll eagerly look forward to your ending mega-review from behind my hands, peeking from in-between my fingers. Good times. Also, hadn't heard of Septimus Heap. Tried googling about weird sight powers but didn't find much, so I'll just take your word for it.

**Hagbre5498**, welcome to the party! No need to apologize, you're too kind for taking the time to write such a thoughtful note now. Regarding your view on Dylan, I'm glad that my portrayal of him is working for you. Honestly, I hated him in the books, especially once Fang leaves and he gets so pushy with Max, BUT the idea of him is interesting, and Dylan at the end of 'Fang' (the first book for Dylan, in which he spends meager 5 days of story time with the Flock and then an indeterminate period before the dog wedding) is an intriguing character with a lot of loose ends. The idea of him returning years down the line to apologize to Fang stuck with me, and now I've got this cool platform for developing his character in a way that JP never got around to. I'm having a good time writing it, and I'm glad you're having a good time reading it.


	11. Chapter 10 - Home Empty Handed

**CHAPTER 10 – HOME EMPTY HANDED**

Fang fingered the seams in his pocket as he stood in the queue, shoulders hunched antisocially. He was waiting to board his second red-eye flight less than 24 hours. Dylan stood just behind and to the left of him, shoe tapping against the dull green carpet, bobbing his head along with the canned music that crackled and fizzed over the speakers.

Fang's skin crawled. He could feel Dylan's curious gaze burn into the side of his neck. Dylan clearly wanted to talk, but Fang was still processing, so he continued to ignore Dylan as he'd done since they left the kennel.

He was playing everything ter Borcht had said on repeat, etching it into his memory so he wouldn't lose any of the details that the filthy whitecoat let slip during his venomous tirade. When the call to board finally interrupted the piped muzak, the queue of baggy-eyed suits and pajama-clad collegiates clutching their Starbucks shifted forward. Fang followed along blindly, barely registering Dylan shuffling along at his heels. Fang's forehead slammed into the lip of the overhead bin as he slipped into the window seat. His fingers flew to the tender skin as Dylan fell into the seat next to him. There was already a lump forming.

Dylan took a dramatic breath and turned towards Fang, jaw fixed resolutely. When he spoke, it was quiet. "I can help. I want to. Please let me help."

Fang finally met Dylan's eyes and watched him coolly. "You don't know what you're talking about."

"I'd know more if you'd just talk to me."

Fang chewed on his tongue, considering the man next to him. Dylan was looking at him like a lost puppy, expression wide open, embarrassingly eager. Fang pushed aside his circular thoughts about ter Borcht to ask the question that had been plaguing him ever since Dylan brought up his Sight.

"Why did you let me See you? Why not Max?"

Dylan drew back slightly, long face looking shamed. He shrugged with a little shake of his head. "I haven't Looked for Her in a long time. It's been at least six years since I had a relapse, if we don't count the CSM shindig last month."

Fang's eyes flicked between Dylan's, listening quietly.

"I knew I had to stop. It wasn't healthy for me. And it wasn't fair to Her, or to you. Like I said the other night," his lips twitched with resigned mirth, "I had to _choose_, or I would've gone crazy, probably. I had to choose to be more than what Hans wanted me to be. And that meant I had to stop trying to talk to Her, stop thinking about Her, move far away, and stop Looking. To build my own life, apart from the pre-ordained stud service he wanted to force me into." He paused to wet his lips, gaze hardening, conviction lacing his whispered conclusion, "I had to choose_._"

Fang felt a twinge of nausea at the memory. Gunther-Hagen had actually introduced Dylan as Max's 'perfect mate.' He scowled out the plane window before turning back to Dylan, words coming out rushed and rude, "Question stands. Why me?"

"I figured maybe after I saw you the other night, you might be willing." Dylan shrugged. "It took me a while to find you, but I caught you on your way home and figured out where to Look for you. And then ter Borcht slipped up and left that box lying in plain view." He flashed a grin.

Fang just felt confused. "Wait, so how exactly does your Sight thing work?"

"Oh, man." Dylan's eyes went wide and he took a breath, settling back into his seat, angled toward Fang. "It's taken a long time just to _start_ figuring it out. What my limits are and how far I can Look. It's kind of like...like Professor X, you know, from the comics? I can sort of tap into people's heads and look at what's around them. If their optic nerve picked it up, I can see it. And if I focus really hard, I can sort of flip the connection and let them See me. That's how I showed you where I was. But I can't do that unless I know what direction to Look in the first place."

"So you lost track of Max of purpose," Fang accused.

"Exactly." Dylan smiled brightly. "I couldn't move on until I really decided to let Her go."

Fang's brows knit together, mind back on Max. His thoughts tripped again and again over the anxious pit left in the wake of her disappearance. "Can you find her now?"

Dylan's smile faltered. "You _want_me to Look for Her?" He hesitated, eyes going wide. "Wait, back at the kennel, you said... You said she's gone?" He shifted in his seat, leaning closer to Fang, voice dropping to a whisper. "You really don't know where she is, do you? Or Iggy either?"

They were interrupted by the saccharine smile of the flight attendant, wanting to know if they'd like a complimentary beverage. Fang asked dully for a Coke, no ice. Dylan turned the full glory of his turquoise blues towards the unsuspecting woman, flashing his teeth in exchange for a ruby can of cran-apple juice and a simpering giggle.

As soon as she moved to the next row, Dylan turned back to prod Fang. "How long, man?"

"Max hasn't been seen since Monday. And Iggy disappeared on Wednesday."

Dylan's troubled gaze shifted blankly onto Fang's right ear, eyes narrowing in confusion. He probably didn't even know exactly how long he'd been in that kennel.

Fang took pity on him, bridging the gap. "It'll be Saturday morning when we land."

Dylan's eyes bugged. "She's been gone five days and you still don't know where She is?" His raised voice pierced the hum of the cabin, making Fang cringe.

"I thought she was with you at ter Borcht's," Fang growled.

"Oh, I get it," Dylan scoffed, pulling away from Fang, words bitter. "No wonder you looked so pissed when you showed up at the kennel and found me all cold and alone."

Fang's eyes blazed and his feathers bristled on raised hackles under his t-shirt. The next moment, the flight attendant was hovering over them, clearing her throat and scowling down her nose. "Is there a problem here, gentlemen?"

Fang shook his head 'no' and turned to stare sullenly out the window. He had no problem letting Dylan handle it with his sweltering charisma.

When the flight attendance was gone again, Dylan turned back to Fang, his lips pursed in an apologetic frown. "Sorry, man," he mumbled and thumped his head back against his seat. "Your wife is missing. That's gotta be terrifying."

Fang's stomach churned. "I'm doing what I have to." He felt Dylan's pitifully sympathetic stare burn a hole in the side of his head. He hated it.

"Well, what about the others? Nudge? Gazzy and Angel?"

Fang's glare hardened. "They're fine."

Dylan looked unconvinced. "How do you know? Ter Borcht said he was after all of you. That he was blackmailing Hans into going after the Flock. And that slip about freezing assets, what do you think that's about?"

"He crippled the CSM. The computers are all bricked, no money, no information. No support."

"Oh." Dylan looked down at his lap, brows furrowed.

Fang took the last sip of his coke, stuffing the little bit of napkin inside and putting it on the table Dylan had pulled down. Maybe Nudge would be able to get somewhere with her coding if she knew where the virus came from. Then again, maybe she'd already figured it out. Maybe the CSM would be up and running by the time they got there and finding Max would be a cinch. Maybe.

Dylan looked up at him, lips stretched across his teeth in a worried grimace. "I don't know what Hans has been up to, but he's very capable, and very dangerous. If he doesn't have the whole Flock by now, I'll be surprised."

Fang bristled defensively. "They're _fine_. Nudge is basically living at CSM headquarters, and Gazzy and Angel are at school, with different names and everything." The smooth denial tasted bitter on his lips. He could talk all he wanted, but Dylan's doubt settled thick over his thoughts. It mixed sickeningly with the fear that had already taken root.

Nudge _should_ be fine at the CSM. The kids were virtually off the radar at the big university.

They were _fine._

But what if they weren't?

What if Gunther-Hagen tracked them down? Fang could have kicked himself for dumping that task onto Nudge. He should have called them himself. Could have, should have, but he didn't. He had been so focused on getting to Max as quickly as he could. Shoving the job off to the nearest Flock member was just easier.

Then again... He pulled his phone out of his pocket and woke the screen. No missed calls, no new messages. Nudge would have let him know right away if anything was wrong. He tried to let himself breathe, tried to thaw the icy fear that made his chest tight. They were fine, and once he knew where to find Gunther-Hagen, he'd make sure of it himself before he even bought the plane ticket. Besides, Max would kill him if he didn't.

He knew he was going to owe Nudge a massive apology.

Dylan persisted. He just wasn't going to drop it. "But _how_do you know if they're fine?"

Fang ignored him. "Tell me about Gunther-Hagen."

Dylan's face soured. "I'd rather not." He squirmed under Fang's unrelenting stare. Finally, he sighed and pressed his head back against the headrest. He opened his mouth, but it was another moment until the words came.

"Growing up with Hans sucked. Hyper-accelerated maturation was a bitch and none of my memories go back more than a decade. From the beginning, he told me exactly what I was supposed to be. He made me intelligent, he made me durable, and he made me want Her. But he never exposed me to anything abstract, like what it meant to die, or what it meant to be good. What it meant to actually love someone. For those first eight months, the only things I knew were the things he told me." Dylan laughed humorlessly. "It only took three weeks with the Flock to realize there was a serious gap in my education."

Fang huffed quietly. "I could have told you that."

Dylan sent him a long-suffering stare from the corner of his eye. The corners of his lips tensed before he continued.

"I was never just an experiment to him, but when I went back, his obsession took over. I told him I wanted to find a job and he went ballistic. I was 'ungrateful.' A 'disappointment.'" He shot Fang a wry glance. "He blamed you, you know. For our dysfunctional relationship. For keeping Her from me. He called you a monster, kept saying how terrible you were for Her, that She should have been mine. It made me so angry, all the time."

He paused to shift in his seat and shrugged self-consciously. "So I started Watching Her. I told myself it was noble, that I was protecting Her or something. I saw a lot of you in the process - not on purpose, dude, stop glaring - and you were always there. For the longest time it made me sick, I was so jealous. Of everything. Every touch, every smile, every kiss. Hans kept pushing me to hate you, telling me you were dangerous, you were too rough, you were hurting Her by staying with Her."

Fang spoke quietly, "You told me that, too." He had almost listened. Almost left. He was fifteen and stupid and in a new relationship, him and Max against the world. Dylan's nagging almost had him convinced to high tail it out of there. But then he saw Max in that white dress at the dog's wedding and he couldn't do it.

"I know. I shouldn't have, I know, believe me, but that was what he taught me." Dylan shook his head with a scoff and went on. "The longer I Watched, I couldn't keep pretending you weren't good for Her. You kept Her safe, and She always looked happy. But Hans was so sick. He couldn't see past his own demented vision of the future, this made-up utopia where She was with me."

Dylan's hand twitched against his thigh and his lips pursed, a purposeful gleam in his eye. "That was when I chose."

Fang turned to really look at him. "To give up?"

Dylan shook his head and took a sip of his juice, the condensation dripping onto the collar of his filthy t-shirt and onto the folding table as he set it back down. "To change. I wasn't going to be this lovesick freak he said I was. I quit cold turkey, stopped using my Sight, tried to figure out how to move on." He pressed his fingers to the little napkin square, leaving damp fingerprints behind, and tried to wipe up the drips.

"It took two years for me to finally move out, and when I did, I saw how bad Hans screwed me over. No one would hire me for more than mowing lawns without a social security number. It didn't take long before Hans was full-out stalking me, showing up where I was couch surfing, getting me fired from my cruddy jobs. So when the CSM showed up, asking if I wanted a job with the relief organization they were starting overseas, I jumped on it. They said they'd hide me from Hans, and I don't know what they did, but it worked. I haven't heard from him in... Man, it's gotta be six years now." He laughed humorlessly and settled against the backrest with a resigned groan, head flopping from side to side. "And now we're going on a manhunt for the guy."

Fang ground his jaw, processing. "And you really don't know how to find him?"

Dylan pursed his lips in grim confirmation. "He could be in Aruba for all I know. I've avoided him like the plague. I can try Looking for him in the lab in Canada where he... You know," he waved his hand around in limp-wristed circles, "where he made me. And I'll check out the one in Malibu."

He looked away quickly, looking a little pale and blanching further when the stewardess jostled his shoulder with the cart as she came by. Fang hardly noticed. He was tripping clumsily through old memories, playing through the morbid soundtrack of 'immortal blood,' 'greater mutations,' and 'personal evolution.'

When Dylan spoke again, it was strained. "Every time I remember what happened in that lab, when he kidnapped you and made up that crap about your blood being some sort of miracle cure, I want to puke. He had himself so completely convinced about it that he killed you just to see what would happen. And then I was halfway to killing _him_ before I did it to myself." He swallowed thickly, Adam's apple bobbing. "I literally had no concept of what I was doing. What it meant."

Fang couldn't help the eye roll. "And eight years later, you have it all figured out?"

"Hell, no," Dylan scoffed. "You just have to understand how crazy he is. I'm seriously surprised he hasn't been committed somewhere." He turned his piercing eyes on Fang. "Honestly, I'm worried about what we'll find. He blames Her for a lot of what happened."

Outwardly, Fang was stoic as ever. But Dylan's words sat uncomfortably, making it harder to breathe. He shoved it down, refusing to think about it. He couldn't be distracted by fear when he still had to find Max. He could be afraid _after _he found her. He sat rigid while Dylan resettled in his seat, lapsing into a welcome silence.

Fang managed to doze in and out, finally fading under the weight of Switzerland. A few hours passed before he was pulled back from the sleepy haze by a screaming child. It was quickly silenced with a pacifier and a gentle shush, but Fang was more conscious than not and couldn't find sleep again.

Eventually, he looked over at Dylan to see him Staring through the floor a few seats ahead with a formidable intensity in his Seeing eyes. He gave up after a while and slumped in his seat, fixing Fang with a withering glance before facing front. The dull resignation in his gaze sent disappointment like a heavy fog settling over Fang.

Dylan must have been looking for Gunther-Hagen. Or Max. It didn't matter, really. He had come up short.

Fang wanted to urge Dylan to keep Looking, but he figured that if he really didn't know where to Look, it was like searching for a single grain of sand on a whole freaking beach. Maybe. He didn't actually get all the ins and outs of Dylan's Sight yet. He'd just have to find Gunther-Hagen the old fashioned way, like he did with ter Borcht.

Eventually, Dylan sighed and turned to Fang. "So?"

Fang stared back. He glanced down at Dylan's fingers drumming on his thighs and then back up to his bright eyes. "So what?"

Dylan looked at him obviously. "Where are we going to start? We've got to find your missing persons."

"_We_ aren't going to find anyone. _We_ are going to the CSM so that they can take care of you and I can get info on Dr. God. Then _my Flock and I_ are going to rescue the others, whether or not you can find Gunther-Hagen first."

Dylan drew back, lips curling with offense. "Are you serious?"

Fang shrugged unsympathetically. "I saw you Looking. You don't know where to find him." He fixed Dylan with a patronizing stare. "I get that you've made an effort to change. That's great. Good for you. But I _don't know you_. This is _my_family. We'll handle it ourselves."

"Bu-"

"_On our own_."

Dylan glared at Fang with everything he had. His eyes searched Fang's stony face, hunting for a chink in the armor. He eventually spat, "Fine," and shifted around to face front, glaring daggers at the dull blue vinyl covering the seat in front of him. He glanced up when the intercom crackled to announce the final hour, but otherwise, he didn't budge for the rest of the flight

Fang just about withered with relief when the announcement came on. He _was so done _being stuck in inaction. He was itching to get off the plane as soon as it hit the earth.

It wouldn't take long to fly over to the CSM where he could drop Dylan off. Then, if the computers were up, he'd just search for Dr. G-H's name, and if not, he'd bother Val for the paper files again.

Then he'd check in with the kids. He wasn't going to make that mistake again.

And then he and Nudge could go on a _real_ rescue mission.

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**Author's Note: Just a quick one today. I went with friends to the Renaissance festival all day and I am bone tired. Thank you thank you thank you to EVERYONE who has taken the time to review. I sincerely hope that my writing gets better with each chapter - I'm working so hard at this! I'm a little anxious about the wordiness of this chapter, but hopefully the background on Dylan and the revealed information about his Sight is interesting enough to make up for it. *crossed fingers* **


	12. Chapter 11 - Empty Offices

**A/N: **Sometimes I forget to write notes like these, but she doesn't seem to hold it against me. MASSIVE THANKS as always to **KLoves2Read** for doing the hard behind-the-scenes work of helping me keep it together as my beta reader.

**Fic Rec: **Are you reading **Catalyst** by **Lustrex**? No? Shame on you. Go read. After you read (and review) this chapter, of course.

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**CHAPTER 11 - EMPTY OFFICES**

Fang could feel Dylan's eyes boring into the back of his skull all the way from the airport to the CSM HQ. He tried to ignore it, just focus on the biting wind in his face. He had nothing to say and more important things to deal with.

His flight pattern was driven, with wide wings and sharp angles as he pushed for speed. He shook the tiredness from his vision and flapped as hard as he could, and his wings might as well have weighed fifty pounds. The taser-damaged one burned like fire. He spared a glance at the roof of his apartment building as they passed over, but didn't slow. He hadn't seen sheets or a shower in more than twenty-four hours and his mouth tasted like death, but Max and Iggy were still waiting.

When their feet finally touched pavement in downtown Denver, the sidewalks were clogged with tourists instead of suits. Fang shoved uselessly against the glass doors at Walsh and Madison, making the mirrored glass ripple, before remembering that it was Saturday and he had to be buzzed in. He turned towards the doorbell tucked off to the side but Dylan was already there, bent before it with his finger on the call button.

The com buzzed to life. "Yes?"

Dylan leaned in close, over-enunciating each word, "My name is Dylan. I'm from the C-F-A branch. I'm, uh, I'm here with Fang..." He trailed off and looked over with arched brows, unsure. The com stayed silent.

Fang rolled his eyes and waved Dylan out of the way, leaning with one shoulder flush against the wall and hitting the call button again. "This is Nick Ride. Buzz us in?" He didn't bother keeping the smug smirk off his face when the com buzzed, the glass doors clicking as the lock disengaged. He powered ahead without bothering to look back. The pair slipped into the empty lobby and headed for the stairs.

When they spilled out of the stairwell onto the seventh floor, the office was lit but deserted. Nudge's office was dark. Fang hummed, disgruntled. He headed towards the glass room at the far end of the floor anyway, Dylan in tow, when a toilet flushed and Valencia stepped out of the restroom in jeans and sneakers, hands still on her fly.

"Oh!" She hastily wiped her damp hands on the edge of her t-shirt and laughed nervously, high-pitched and gleeful. "I wasn't expecting you. I heard about ter Borcht's arrest but I didn't realize you'd be back so soon. I'll have to call Ella, she's been texting me non-stop, worried about Iggy." Her smile faltered when she saw Dylan over Fang's shoulder. She frowned and looked behind them. "Where are the others?"

Fang wormed his head to the side, catching Val's eye seriously. "Did you get the Freeze cleaned up?"

Dylan shifted from foot to foot and chirped, "What's the Freeze?"

Val raised her eyebrows at Fang's avoidance. She shot Dylan another confused glance and then sighed, shoulders withering. "Not good. No one's been able to make any headway without you guys here."

Fang hesitated. "Without us?" His eyes flicked to the dark office at the end of the cubicle row and he felt his heart pick up. "Where's Nudge?"

Val's eyes bugged, the blood draining from her face. "What do you mean, 'where's Nudge'? Isn't she with you?" She looked at Dylan again, comprehension setting in. "Fang, where is Max_?_"

Fang forced his words out evenly, "She wasn't there." He was already turning inward, trying to wrap his head around what Val was saying. That Nudge was missing, too.

"Oh, God," Val whimpered and massaged her forehead with trembling fingers. "Nudge wasn't with you at all, was she?" Her hands moved to cover her mouth, her eyes pinched shut, and her breath echoed loudly in her palms. Her words were muffled with the softness of skin as she explained. "When she didn't come back from her break, I just assumed she'd changed her mind about going with you." Her eyes tracked sightlessly across the office through her fingers. "I've got to file for missing persons." One arm snaked down to wrap around her waist protectively.

The corners of Fang's mouth drew down in an intense frown and he let his eyes fall shut. He took a deep belly-breath, turning on his heel to drop his forehead against the wall, hitting it harder than he meant to. He stayed there for a beat, counting each breath. He wanted to get away from Dylan's pointed looks. To shut out the office. To have room to think.

Nudge was missing. Obviously she'd been taken, same as the others. And the CSM was still locked down without a key. Having found Dylan didn't come close to making up the difference. One step forward, three steps back.

Dylan gave up trying to catch Fang's eye and turned to address Val instead. "Is the Freeze that virus?"

Dr. Martinez nodded, speaking from behind one hand in a wavering whisper. "When it first showed up, it just slowed everything down, but now it's completely volatile. Any document we try to open gets corrupted and we can't access any of our accounts, our funds, nothing. We're locked out of everything except email, and most of that is junk or the usual demands for information. So, junk." She flopped one hand helplessly, eyes to the ceiling. "We can't even figure out how it got into the system."

"Ter Borcht wrote it." Fang turned sharply to look at Val. "He had a vendetta. Against the Flock, and the CSM. He wants the Flock dead and the CSM dissolved."

Val pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes. "Of course he does." She drew in a shuddering sigh, shaking her head helplessly. "We need Nudge back. Maybe if she knew where it came from, she could fix it. She's so good at things like this, but she was getting so frustrated. We all are." Her distress was evident in the thin lines at the corners of her eyes, between her brows, around her lips. She was clutching a pen tightly and raised it to fit it between her teeth, nibbling on the cap absently.

Dylan reached out to her softly, letting the side of his thumb graze her shoulder. "What happened, Dr. M?"

Val shrugged. "It wasn't anything that raised red flags. She didn't come back after her break Thursday, and then she wasn't at work yesterday. It's not like her to take time off without calling in first, but I know Flock business operates on a totally different level for you guys, so I didn't think anything of it. But now..." She went back to gnawing on her pen cap.

"Well, what about Gazzy and Angel? Fang said-"

"I asked Nudge to check on them," Fang spoke softly against the cream wall. "I asked her to do it because I was getting on a plane to Switzerland. To rescue Max." Max, who was still missing. He grimaced and worried his head against its anchored point.

"It's not your fault, Fang." Valencia's reassurance fell on doubtful ears. He knew wasn't guiltless here. He swiveled his head to look past his chin at Max's mom, jaw set. "I'm going to find her."

"I know you are." Her voice was so soft, so comforting. Even if she wasn't _his_mother, she was still a mom, right down to her Hispanic bones. He blinked back the burning behind his eyes. That was the last thing he needed.

Dylan kept pushing, undeterred. "Well, we'll go check on them. On Gazzy and Angel. They're supposed to be at school, right? We can track them down at their dorms or something, and they can help look." He looked earnestly at Fang. "We'll split it. You can call Angel, and if you give me the number, I'll call Gazzy, and we ca-"

"_We_ are not doing anything." Fang straitened sharply, rubbing at the red mark shining on his forehead. "I'll check on the kids and decide what's next. You can update Val on Gunther-Hagen. Here."

"Dude, _quit_ interrupting me!" Dylan snapped harshly. "I want to help you!"

Fang eyed him with one eyebrow cocked, sizing him up, before shaking his head firmly. "No. This is Flock business."

"Bullcrap." Dylan glowered, jaw set. "I know I've kept my distance, but it's not like I don't care. I should come with you. I can _See,_which you didn't exactly complain about when we were in Bern. And besides, it's stupid to do this alone."

Fang bristled. "You think I can't?"

Dylan took a step toward Fang, his back to Val. "What, were you napping while I was telling you about Hans? He's unstable, which makes him dangerous! You can't just waltz in there and-"

"I can handle dangerous," Fang snarled. He drew up to his full height and tipped his chin back so he was eye-to-eye with Dylan. "It's one man with a few screws loose. What the hell do you think is gonna happen?"

Val was suddenly standing between them, stroking his shoulder with light fingers and peering up at him seriously. "I think you should let Dylan help you."

He shrugged her off, refusing to look at her and see bits of Max reflected back at him through her sad, sad eyes. He sharpened his glare at Dylan, words harsh with conviction. "I've got this."

Val was having none of it. "Ay, Fang!" She snapped her fingers and stood up on her toes to fix him with her fierce stare. "Escucha los consejos de tu madre, huh? Half of your family is missing. My _daughter_ is missing. So help me God, if you are too damn stubborn to let Dylan help, I'll...I'll..." She choked on her words with one big, shuddering breath. "I'd just feel so much better if you weren't doing this alone."

Fang dropped his gaze to the floor, chin tilted towards Dr. Martinez. He was fighting it, but he could feel his resolve crumbling like sand in the wake of her plea. He clenched his fist before shoving it in his pocket, rocking back on his heels with a thoughtful frown. Problem was, Dylan was a _liability_. He'd reappeared suddenly after eight years and Fang didn't know if he could trust the man's combat skills in a fight, let alone anything else. But now Nudge was missing, too. He stubbornly refused the idea of pulling Gazzy and Angel out of school and into danger, but he couldn't find the others alone.

Valencia's compelling stare shifted to Dylan. She cleared her throat and redirected the conversation in her collected 'doctor' voice. "Explain to me what the deal is with Gunther-Hagen? Please?" Her eyes flitted between the pair, expectant.

Dylan answered before Fang could even open his mouth, "That's the other lead from ter Borcht. He's blackmailing Hans into tracking down the Flock to satisfy his vendetta." His face screwed up in disgust. "Hans is supposed to collect and deliver them to ter Borcht in exchange for me."

"He wanted us dead," Fang interrupted abruptly, his gaze still trained on the floor between his shoes. "He just couldn't leave Switzerland to do it, so he kidnapped Dylan so G-H would do it for him."

Valencia frowned in confusion. "But Dylan's safe now. Roland doesn't have any leverage."

"Hans doesn't know that," Dylan countered. "And even if he did, I'm not convinced he'd just let the Flock go, unharmed. He blamed them completely when I left. He might think he can use them to draw me back on his own, or use them in his clinical studies or something." Dylan's expression hardened. "Hans will do almost anything to get me. Well...what he thinks of as me." He shook his head in denial. His next words were soft but driven, "I'm more than what he thinks I am."

"I need to find him." Fang lifted his gaze to Valencia, arms falling to his sides. "Do you have an address?" Knowing where to go had made tracking down ter Borcht easy as pie. An address on Doctor Haagen-Dazs would be invaluable.

Disappointingly, Val winced and shook her head. "He's one of the few we've had trouble tracking over the years. He's been smart, kept his head down, covered his tracks. I remember hearing Maggie complain that they couldn't get a stable address on him because he starting moving around every month. I'm so sorry, Fang."

Fang stayed silent, teeth grinding, feeling his hope fail. He didn't even know where to start. At least when he went after Dylan, he knew he had to end up in Bern. He glanced warily at the man next to him. It took him a moment and a hard blink to realize that Dylan's eyes were fixed elsewhere. The worry slipped away as Fang watched with rapt attention.

Dylan stood unnaturally still as he Stared through the wall.

"Do you See something?"

"Wait," Dylan mouthed with a shake of his hand by his hip, motioning for Fang to be patient.

Dylan's pupils expanded and contracted, Looking so much further than they should have been able to. Valencia only looked confused. Fang bent towards her and spoke in hushed tones, "Dylan can See far. Like, mutant ability far. Through buildings and across cities. Hans programmed him with it." Val's eyes flashed in recognition and Fang straightened, watching with bated breath.

You could have heard a pin drop. Fang felt crazy, waiting for Dylan to say something about whatever it was that he could See. It was obviously important. He shifted back and forth on his feet, drifting further and further away, watching the clock anxiously. He was about two seconds from saying something to pull Dylan back into the room with them when the man took a sharp breath, his shoulders tensing. Fang hurried to come up beside him again, watching Dylan's bright blues focus with pinprick pupils.

His lips parted before any sound escaped, working voicelessly. Val grabbed Fang's hand and stepped alongside him, buzzing with anxious energy.

"What do you see?"

Dylan's throat constricted, his words coming out in a tense wheeze.

"It's Her."

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**Spanish Translation: **

**"Escucha los consejos de tu madre" = "Listen to your mama"**

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**Author's Note:** Replies to my lovely readers...I'm regretting skipping the replies in my last chapter's note, there are so many things I want to say!

**Nola96: **Girl, you are so dedicated. I love it. I _loved_ writing the weird bit about Fang's injection. It was just the first thing ter Borcht could grab, it's not like it's a huge deal for the rest of the story, but it seemed like a neat device at the time and it was fun to write. The taser, too. I'll have to read back over the chapter and look at flow...everything's been through so many edits, sometimes I can't keep it straight. Also, the Flock's upbringing is absolutely fascinating. In a "there is virtually NOTHING about it in the canon stories" kind of way. So it leaves a lot open for interpretation, for writing stories, whatever. I'm glad the little origin story I cobbled together for Dylan held your interest. As for the capitalization...he's avoiding saying her name. Out of respect for Fang, for her, for himself. All of it. Unless I slipped up, he won't say her name aloud for many many chapters. So the capital "Her" is a 'her' with emphasis, where he might have said her name but won't. A very specific her, even though they're only talking about Max here. And yes, there will be more cracking of poor Fang. I'm trying to keep it at a slow build, because it's Fang and he tries so hard to keep his cool, but you'll see him slip more and more.

**hisgirltuesday: **Yay, you like Dylan now. =) I am thrilled! I _want_ you to like him. And yeah, Fang's boss is a jerk. It's okay not to like that guy. As for Angel and Gazzy...well, they'll get there. You'll see.

**j4bb3rwocky: **Thank you for loving my mad scientist. There are so many good(terrible) ones to choose from. This story has a delicious selection. I had to go and look up "breaking speech" as a term, and you're right, ter Borcht's could have been a good one. There are more moments coming, though. And I'm gleefully giddy that you thought the dialogue last chapter moved forward well. That was my biggest concern, that it would feel useless, but like you noticed there's a lot of character-building that happens. Goals included getting Fang and Dylan on the same page, catching the reader up about Dylan's backstory, and having some sort of target for where to go next. Which I think I achieved.

**Lustrex: **Just a shout-out, since we've been PMing about OoS and Catalyst and JP's weird decisions. I'm still stoked that you're taking the time to write all these reviews! Thank you!

**Bookwriter16: **I always give shout-outs. Thanks for the reviews! I hope this chapter answered your wish. =)

**KLoves2Read: **The pit-sniffing moment continues to be one of my favorites. I love adding in realistic-awkward moments. Make the story come alive, you know? With...pit sniffing... Good point re: father/son stalkers, I hadn't thought of that before! Though Dylan is trying so hard not to, poor guy. And I think the last chapter might've died without the flight attendant. All my readers would be crushed under a title wave of dialogue tags. Yech. So, enter the flight attendant and Dylan's cran-apple juice to break it up.

**fleeceinabox: **Interesting, I hadn't thought about continuing the Interpol scene. Sometimes there are side-outtakes, but this wasn't one of them. What would you want to see?


	13. Chapter 12 - Max

**A/N: **Thanks to **KLoves2Read** for helping me figure out how to insult Pimple Guy effectively.

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**CHAPTER 12 - MAX**

If she had her way, the iron bracelets that anchored her to the wall would have melted off at least three hours ago under her hate-filled stare. At least. Note to Max: add "laser vision" to the mutant ability wish list.

She was pissed. Her fingers were numb from being shackled to the wall by her wrists since the day before. She was bored as hell. And her left butt cheek had gone numb like yesterday.

Oh, and she had no freaking clue where she was or who had taken her.

On top of that, she felt ridiculous. Not that it was a _surprise_ that the whitecoats didn't care about her dignity, but being chained to the wall had an extra level of suckage when she was stuck in her Mickey Mouse boxers and sports bra. She never thought she'd _wish_ for a scratchy hospital gown the color of Pepto-Bismol, but something about being in her underwear made her feel vulnerable in a way that made being kidnapped, cold, and alone about twenty times worse.

The quiet was broken with a skin-on-skin slap and a pathetic yelp. The door to her cell was solid, with no window and no handle on the inside, but it didn't keep her from hearing through to the hallway outside. She listened with narrowed eyes to the violent arguing on the other side.

A petulant, whiny voice spoke timidly in some language Max couldn't understand. She recognized it as the blemish-covered, sallow-skinned intern who had been bringing her meal-a-day.

A gruff voice, low and threatening, interrupted him with a barked command. Max closed her eyes in grim satisfaction. Pimple-guy was probably getting chewed out for the mistake that led to her wrist cuffs. He had actually taken her seriously when she demanded to be allowed to use a toilet instead of the litter box they'd made up in the corner. She snorted. What an amateur.

When the arguing stopped and Pimple Guy finally came in, two left feet and all thumbs with a clattering tray, Max almost felt sorry for him. His cheekbone was an angry red from the slap and a few of his blemishes were broken and bloody. His ear was flushed pink, lips puckered in embarrassment, and he seemed to shrink into himself when he bent to place Max's tray on the ground.

But then he looked up at her with ice cold hate steeling his gaze, and when his jaw gnashed to work up some moisture, she could just _tell _he was going to spit in her soup, the bastard. That was the only food she was gonna get all day.

"Hrragh!" She shrieked, lunging forward off the wall and rattling her chains. The man squealed in surprise and fell back on his ass, sending the tray skittering and overturning the bowl of grains and rice.

The door slammed behind him and Max was left alone again with her litter box and her ruined dinner. She scowled at the remains of the meal before settling back against the wall. She was queasy with hunger but she wasn't ready yet to scrape mushy rice off the floor. That felt like giving in, and Max wasn't a quitter.

She groaned and leaned back against the wall, pulling her legs beneath her and trying to ignore the hollow pang as her stomach threatened to eat itself. She turned away so she wouldn't have to look at the mess on the floor and squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn't above using sleep to distract from the ache. She tried breathing deeply, letting her mind play back over the last five days in dizzying circles.

She couldn't remember being taken. She remembered beforehand, waking up after hitting the snooze button five times and itching to go for a fly badly enough that she called into work to use personal time that she probably didn't even have.

The next thing she knew, she was waking up and already hyperventilating in a cheap-ass kennel in the middle of an empty room.

Maybe she should have been embarrassed at how completely panicked she was, but it had been...well, a really long time since she'd been treated like a thing instead of a person. The flashbacks to her School days were so intense that she couldn't breathe and she lost herself in an out-of-control meltdown. She'd screamed her throat raw until she lost the contents of her stomach in the corner and then had to talk herself down from the attack with the sour stench of the sick burning her nose.

When she finally did get a grip, was finally calm enough to plan, she already knew she wasn't going to take this shit lying down. The forced damsel in distress crap was old when it was new, and she might be out of practice, but she was still Maximum-fucking-Ride.

Valiant Escape Attempt Number One was a pretty cut-and-dry deal. Once she'd gotten herself under control, she busted the thin wiring on the kennel and found the door to the room they'd shoved her in to be carelessly unlocked. Of course, camera surveillance won out in the end. She didn't make it more than thirty feet down the hallway before they caught up with her, talking about her in not-English as she scraped clumsily at the tranq dart in her arm.

Valiant Escape Attempt Number Two wasn't much better. They had ditched the kennel, thank god, and stuck her in an empty room with a fancy keypad entry system. She had poured on the charm with Pimple Guy. It only took her two days of pointed looks and gesturing to convince him that giving a litter box to a grown person was ridiculous and that she needed an actual toilet. The sucker agreed and was out cold before he'd closed the door behind them, courtesy of a well-aimed punch.

That time, Max actually made it around the corner of the hallway before a couple of Asian-looking guys in crisply starched white coats slowed her down with another tranq syringe and a taser.

She wasn't sure what she'd try next. Wall shackles were a completely different challenge. She needed a key, or Iggy's pick kit. Hell, she'd settle for a paperclip and a bobby pin.

Sleep finally came, pulling her away from daydreams of snatching the keys from the intern's pocket with her toes. She dozed in and out, watching weird half-visions swim behind her closed eyelids. It was during the slideshow of foggy dreams that she was tugged Elsewhere, like her dreams and her consciousness were fighting for her attention, until her head pounded and her heart clenched. She started awake, breathless, with her eyes pricking from a sudden wave of urgent need.

Something...something about Fang. Maybe?

God, she missed him, and in the sleepy haze that lingered, she couldn't keep herself from feeling hopelessly desperate for him. For the feel of his sinewy arms wrapped around her, his scruffy chin nuzzling against the soft skin of her neck, his lips searching for hers. But she felt clammy and sick against the chill of the polished concrete floor, alone and still chained. She fought to recall her dream as it faded around the corners of her vision. She could have sworn that she could almost see it when she closed her eyes.

She blinked back the hot tears that threatened to spill over, trying to suck them right back in, but the blurriness at the edges of her vision persisted. She shook her head, squinting at her toes in an effort to see clearly, when her entire _room_ rushed past and she was looking at the empty offices of the CSM in Denver. The administration floor, a few levels below her office in Operations.

She opened her eyes with a harsh gasp and stared frantically around her little cell, but there was nothing there. A shiver gripped her spine. Her eyelids felt heavy and she just _knew_ that there was something she needed to see.

She took a shuddering breath and turned her face into her raised forearm, pressing her eyes shut against her skin. Her jaw dropped when she saw that she was somehow back inside the CSM, staring at the motivational poster with the waterfall that she kind of hated. She followed a magnetic pull to her left and just about jumped out of her skin when Fang was _right_ _there_, bouncing on his toes with tell-tale lines of worry hidden behind his intense stare. Her stomach was in her throat, but he didn't even flinch.

Her heart dropped.

She knew then that he couldn't see her. She reached out to touch him, fingers shaking, but she just kept _missing_ him, and she found herself loathing whatever this vision was for making her feel so goddamn lonely.

Max let her arm fall and followed Fang's line of sight, past her mom's matching worried stare and on to Dylan. Dylan, who was staring right at her with chilling focus.

Her eyebrows shot up, which was especially weird since she could feel them dragging across the skin of her forearm. "You can see me?" she squeaked.

Almost imperceptibly, Dylan nodded. His stare never wavered, pinprick pupils drowning in ice blue.

And she got it. The weird close-eyed vision clicked somewhere in the back of her mind. She remembered Dylan's weird Sight, and though she didn't know how, she knew, _knew_ deep down in her gut that what she was seeing was real. She pulled away from Dylan's creepy eyes and looked at her mom, selfishly encouraged by the lines of worry tracking down her face, before allowing herself to give Fang a long, hard once-over.

He looked brittle with stress, like he might crack apart at the joints at any moment. Angry and anxious, with dark blotches marring the soft skin beneath his eyes. That little muscle at the hinge of his jaw was visibly tight, and Max vaguely wondered if it was possible to crush your own teeth if you clamped them hard enough.

His deep, dark eyes were still fixed on Dylan and Max was afraid to turn her head away, to lose Fang and meet those creepy, focused blues. Dylan's piercing eyes were burning a hole in the side of her skull. She could feel the intensity of his stare heating her up and breaking her down. She didn't know where she was or how Dylan had even known where to Look, but as she watched Fang wait with rapt attention, she felt a little flicker of hope ignite somewhere deep in her gut. A wide grin spread across her face and she could have shouted.

They were looking for her.

They were going to come.

And she was gonna get those damn keys. With any luck, she'd be out and flying free before they even showed up.

One way or another, she was getting out of here.

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**A/N: **Now that we're in the next part of the story, I'm really thoroughly enjoying reading your reviews (and the predictions and questions that come with them). Some of you are hitting awfully close to the mark on some things and it makes me excited to keep pushing the next few chapters so that you can see all of the crazy times that I have planned.

I'm relieved, too, that you guys liked the little bit of Spanish from Val. I was nervous about that part, since I've never had Spanish in school (I took French and German), and playing around with a language you aren't comfortable with is weirdly terrifying. I was just going to sub in the Spanish word for "listen," but when I plugged it into WordReference (which is the bees knees, by the way), it gave me the 'listen to your mother's advice' line and I thought that was just perfect.

**Bookwriter16: **Are you reading my mind? You wished for a Max POV chapter, and BAM, that is what I had for you. And I have a least a little idea how long you waited - just as long as I took to post it!

**Lustrex: **You're very welcome for the shout-out. It's well-deserved. Thank you again for the helpful reviews. I LOVE knowing which details you're getting hung up on because it helps me make sure I'm addressing them. The worst is finding a good story with lots of fascinating details that don't even get utilized ever, so I'd prefer to have all my interesting ends tied up.

**thestupidgenius1123: **Much review, very kind, so wordy. THANK YOU for telling me you're emotionally invested in what's going on. That particular comment means so much. And I'm so glad you love Dylan. Keep loving Dylan! Dylan is wonderful. As far as POV's - well, this chapter broke up the Fang-Fest, and there's at least one more Max POV down the line. Likely two. But Fang's POV...I don't know what it is, I just keep going back to it. One of the other story ideas I have churning around in my brain is all Fang's POV also. I'd just so much rather tell the story through his eyes than anyone else's. I wonder why that is? Psycho-analyze me, I'm ready. Go for it.

**Nola96: **Val is quickly becoming one of my favorites to write, up there with Nudge. She's got spark and fire but she's still a _mom_ through and through. Something about her relationship with Fang is really appealing to me, too. I've got a little short story that's all fluff kind of halfway written and there are some good Fang and Valencia moments in it. Someday, maybe I'll finish it...

**KLoves2Read: **I was nervous about adding the Spanish without your input! Languages that I don't understand are hard. I wonder how stilted that phrase sounds to someone who speaks Spanish as their first language, you know? And yeah, Dylan's "quit it" line is a good fit. That's one of the few that I wrote on the first draft and never changed.

**j4bb3rwocky: **You are right, that sentence was awkward. I've fixed it now. Sometimes, I trip over a sentence over and over and somehow still believe it'll be fine if I leave it. Maybe I oughta trust my gut more. Anyway, onward with the hunt for Gunther-Hagen! Well, in the next chapter. This one's all Max.


	14. Chapter 13 - Alma Mater

**A/N: **Thanks as always to **KLoves2Read** for keeping me honest as my beta-reader. I was still calling this my "Big Story" when you beta-read this chapter for me. That feels like so long ago!

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**CHAPTER 13 - HAIL TO THEE, ALMA MATER**

Dylan's face was still as stone, eyebrows over-arched above pinpoint irises, lips barely parted, a tense knot where his nose met his brow line. The seconds stretched out like a rubber band pulled impossibly taught.

Fang hovered nearby, watching with bated breath. He balanced on the balls of his feet, looking like he might spread his wings to take off right there in the office.

Val was radiating nervous energy next to him, eyes glued to Dylan's while she mindlessly chewed on her mutilated pen cap. She gripped Fang's arm with her cold fingers until there were little white crescents under each fingertip. Whether she was tying herself or _him_ to the ground, he wasn't sure.

The rubber band finally snapped. Dylan's eyes blew wide and he came gasping back from wherever he'd gone, gulping air like he'd drowned. His eyes fluttered, threatening to roll back, and Fang caught him by the shoulders when he started tipping to one side. Dylan groaned pitifully as Fang eased him to the floor next to the cheap silk ficus.

Dr. Martinez spoke to Fang urgently, crouching next to Dylan. "There's a mini-fridge under the desk in Nudge's office. Grab one of her energy drinks." She reached with two sure fingers to take Dylan's pulse.

Fang scrambled to the office, tripping a little on a bulge in the carpeting as he dropped to his knees by the cheap plastic fridge and grabbing for a can. RockStar was Nudge's coffee replacement; there was always at least a six pack on hand, and he tore one from the box blindly. He rushed back into the hall, desperate to know what Dylan had Seen. What he wouldn't give for Angel's mind-reading powers...

"I feel like I ran a marathon," Dylan mumbled, looking up as Fang rounded the corner.

"Is she okay?" The words tumbled out of Fang's lips, unbidden, and he crouched next to Val. She took the cold can from his weak grip as he leaned over them, balanced on his toes.

Dylan's eyes were closed and his face was pale. "If you call alone and chained to a wall 'okay,' then sure."

"How did she look?" Fang pressed.

Dylan hesitated, just half a second, before stuttering, "Uh, she was sleep...sleeping. A couple of bruises. No bandages."

Fang waited impatiently for more, lips pale and taught, but Dylan fell silent, cracking his eyes slightly to take the opened drink from Dr. M.

"So where is she?" Fang pressed harshly.

"Dunno." Dylan spoke weakly from behind the lip of the aluminum, sipping gingerly and forcing his breathing to slow.

Fang squared his shoulders, feathers puffing up behind him. "What do you mean you don't know? You saw her!" Val flinched as his voice rose to fill the office.

"Dude. Chill. Out. I need a minute, okay?"Dylan glared.

Fang felt sick with urgency. The last thing he wanted was to give Dylan a minute. But then Val turned and pinned him down with her fiery Mom Eyes, and all he could do was bite his tongue and stare grumpily at the floor, sufficiently cowed.

Finally, Dylan chugged the end of his drink and spoke again. "I don't know where She is."

"How can you not know?" Fang snarled.

Val cut in, glancing at Fang sharply before focusing in on Dylan. "Dylan, sweetie? What just happened?"

"I was programmed for Her." Dylan shrugged, his words coming out softly. "I guess I just..._felt Her_. I Looked there." He glanced up but quickly dropped his gaze, averting his eyes from the intense frown Fang wore. "I know She's far. And I know She's that way." He pointed one shaky finger through the wall where he had been Looking. "But I have no idea _how_ far. All I could See was the cell She's in."

He met Fang's indignant frown and bobbled his head apologetically. "It's just the way it works, man. It's like using binoculars to see something from way far off. Twitch a finger, lose your target. It was a lot just to focus on Her, to See what She sees around Her. Trying to find anyone nearby so I can See more is pretty much impossible at this distance."

"Can you find her again?" Fang heard the desperation in his voice and winced internally.

Dylan grimaced. "Maybe? I don't know. I can't feel Her anymore." He thumbed the tab on his can, placing it on the floor next to him with a sigh. "Having a direction helps, for sure." He pursed his lips, staring at the star logo. Something else was bothering him, Fang could feel it.

"What about Iggy? And Nudge?" Val implored, picking up the discarded can without taking her eyes off Dylan. She was met with a slight shake of his head.

"Just Her." He hesitated. "It doesn't add up, though. I mean, I guess...maybe Hans has changed his MO in the last few years, but..."

"What is it?" Val coaxed.

Dylan shook his head again and met Fang's eyes. "I know ter Borcht threw Hans' name out, but it doesn't look like his work. Her chained to a wall like that?"

Fang's eyes glossed over, tracking beneath half-shut lids while Dylan went on. "Didn't ter Borcht say something else about Her specifically? That Hans doesn't have her?"

"It's a lie," Fang whispered firmly before looking back at Dylan. "Or he's wrong. Misinformed. Half the Flock is missing, and we know Gunther-Hagen would do pretty much anything if he thought he'd get you back."

Dylan winced and Fang stood up, crossing his arms across his chest and nodding firmly. "I've got to talk to the kids, get Gazzy and Angel on board. Then you're going to help us find Dr. Crazy." It was thin, but at least it was a plan.

Dylan eyed him warily. "You're not going to fight me about helping anymore?"

Fang nodded once, sharply, and noted the look of relief that washed across Val's face. "You know Gunther-Hagen. You know what makes him tick. We need to find him." It was a weak concession, maybe, but he didn't want to commit to any more than that. Dylan might be useful to help find Gunther-Hagen, but Fang definitely wasn't sold on the idea of bringing him along for the actual rescue mission.

He also wasn't going to leave Gazzy and Angel behind again, with Flock members disappearing by the day, and three was plenty.

"I'll call the kids." Fang turned away, taking a couple of paces down the hall and fishing his phone out of his back pocket. He speed-dialed the Gasman and waited for it to ring, startled when the phone picked up right away.

"_Hello?"_

"Hey, Gazzer. Listen, do-" Fang was cut off by Gazzy's immature cackle filling the line.

"_Psyyyyych! Gotcha! I'm not around right now, but leave me a message and if you're lucky-"_

Fang hung up before the recording finished, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat. It wasn't unheard of for Gazzy to ignore phone calls, but the kid's compulsive texting habit meant that he charged his phone religiously each night. It was _always_ on, and it _always_ rang at least twice before Gazzy picked up or hit 'Ignore.'

It wasn't a big deal, Fang told himself. It shouldn't have been a big deal. Except that every time he blinked, someone else went missing. No matter how much he wanted it to be, this didn't feel like a coincidence.

He turned back to Val and Dylan who were both watching him, still sitting on the carpeting.

Val spoke first, voice laced with dread, "He wasn't there, was he?"

Fang shook his head and Val's face crumpled. She took a steadying breath, blinking rapidly against the tears gathering at the corners of her eyes. Fang turned to Dylan and tipped his head toward the door. "You good to move on?"

"Yup." Dylan nodded loosely and hopped up onto the balls of his feet, steadying himself with the tips of his fingers splayed across the floor. He took a breath before standing all the way, joints cracking. "It always takes a couple of minutes when I go all the way, but I'm good."

"All the way?"

Dylan caught the way Fang eyed him. "I tried to let Her see us, too. So She knows we're looking, you know? Give Her some hope." He leaned back and groaned. "Really kicks the crap outta me, though."

Fang grunted. He got it. Once, he'd tried to make one of _National's_ sailboats Imperceptible. He was going after a difficult wildlife shot, a pod of porpoises that kept spooking. He'd been able to hold on for about four seconds before the sailboat flashed into sight and he fell on his ass, feeling like he was about to puke from the effort and the way the horizon was see-sawing crazily.

He looked at Val, trying for reassuring. "I'm _going_ to find them. I'll bring Max home."

Val stood and nodded fiercely, twisting her lips into a teary half-smile. Her voice shook, "I expect a phone call this time. Don't you dare leave me wondering if you're okay."

Fang leaned towards her and kissed her on the temple. "'Course, mom," he mumbled, pulling back to see her watery smile. She always melted when he called her 'mom.' It was probably something he should try to do more often.

He turned to Dylan with a nod. "Let's go."

They were in the air within three minutes, angling towards the university campus. Fang tried to force himself to breathe easy. Usually, no matter what dark thoughts were running through his head, flying went miles towards clearing them out. And the evening was perfect, with crisp mountain air whistling through his feathers and the setting sun bathing them in brilliant orange. But the closer they got to the kids' apartment, the harder he had to work to keep the worry at bay.

Fang shook his wings out when they landed, trying to shake the tension off, too, but failing miserably. He hated not knowing what to expect. He stood before the peeling red door with the brass number '3' screwed in the center and fished his key ring from his front pocket.

"There's no one in there," Dylan said from beside him.

"They're probably in class." Fang's retort was automatic, but he felt his stomach clench. He needed to be right about this. Maybe Gazzy had finally listened to Max about keeping his phone off when he was in lecture. That would explain the straight-to-voicemail call. That was probably it. Gazzy had finally learned an ounce of responsibility.

The door swung open to a dark apartment, lights off and shades drawn, but Fang's enhanced eyes could see the mess just fine. There were psychology textbooks spread open all across the coffee table and a half-eaten peanut butter and jelly sandwich on the floor next to the couch, but no Angel. Gazzy's book bag was slouched open on a chair, ruling out class.

Fang squinted into the corner behind the couch where there was some sort of black cube about as big as a shoe box with a couple of wires sticking out and sighed. Gazzy never could kick his bomb-making habit. The box was a little cruder than what he was used to seeing from the Gasman, but the bomb itself wasn't unusual.

Then there was the lamp, toppled over in the corner of the room, shade bent and bulb crushed.

Fang jumped when the land line rang shrilly. He ignored Dylan's startled stare and reached to take it off the wall where it was hooked next to a sharpie-covered calendar.

"Hello?"

There was a fumbling pause before a nasally voice filled Fang's ear. "Oh! I wasn't expecting anyone to pick up, I'm sorry. I'm looking for Ms. Ride, is she there?"

Fang swiveled to lean against the wall, crossing his ankles to keep his toes from tapping. "She's not here right now. Who's this?"

"Doctor Brown. I have Angel in my Human Informational Processing class. Do you know how I can reach her? She doesn't seem to be responding to emails. I haven't seen her at an exam review all week, it's quite unusual. She's at the top of the class and I don't want her to fall behind right before the final examination."

Fang's grip on the phone doubled. "She said something about a family emergency. I'll let her know you were concerned."

"Please do. And please tell her I'd be happy to help her make up whatever she needs."

"Sure, thanks." Fang turned grimly to Dylan after the line went dead, face drawn. "We need to find Gunther-Hagen."

Dylan's brows furrowed but he didn't say anything. As they left the apartment, though, he looked at Fang with miserable sympathy. Fang squirmed in his skin, avoiding Dylan's gaze as he locked up. He turned and bumped chest-first into a scrawny kid wearing a university t-shirt and a backwards ball cap.

"Whoa!" The kid backed up a pace, palms facing Fang, and looked him and Dylan up and down in confusion. "I haven't seen you guys around before. You friends of Angel's?"

"Older brother," Fang said without missing a beat. "You lookin' for Gazzer?"

The kid nodded loosely, grinning easily. "That little bitch owes me five bucks. Said he'd bring over the pizza money after calc on Thursday, but he's skippin' class and he won't text me back. I gotta eat, brah." He shrugged helplessly and gave Fang another once-over. "Older brother? You don't look like you're related to either of 'em."

"Missionary parents," Fang shot back. "We're all adopted." He winced internally over the old habit resurfacing. He hadn't used that excuse in years. Hadn't needed to, not since the flock was on the run.

But now, he was running.

The kid guffawed, eyes popping wide. "Brah, are you for real? I am gonna ride his ass _so hard_ about skipping that fantastic detail. He probably has heinous youth group stories or some shit." He took a step toward the apartment door but Fang blocked him, arms folded.

"He's not here."

The kid peered over Fang's shoulder, unconvinced. "Oh, yeah? Then what were you guys doing inside? And how am I supposed to buy Ramen? I have to last another week before my student loan clears."

Dylan looked pointedly at Fang, raising his eyebrows and glancing obviously toward the kid. Fang sighed and pulled his wallet from his pocket, thumbing a twenty out of the billfold and handing it to the kid.

His eyes lit up and he clutched the bill tightly. He rushed through a thank you and turned around, disappearing in the inky black car lot.

Dylan moved to stand in front of Fang. "They're all gone."

Fang rolled his eyes at the obvious statement, jaw clenched. He turned on his heel and came face-to-face with the closed door. When he turned around, Dylan was still there. Fang wanted to punch something.

Dylan looked frantic, fidgeting compulsively, fingers twitching, feet shuffling, head bobbing sharply as his anxiety rose. "They've all been taken and we don't even know where to look!"

Dylan's anxiety attack was the last thing that Fang wanted to deal with. He had enough on his plate without babysitting Dylan, too. He needed a clear head. He needed to make a plan. He needed to be able to _act. He hardly cared whether or not Dylan still wanted to tag along, but if he was gonna pitch a fit, he could take his sorry ass back to Switzerland._

"We'll start with Iggy," Fang decided. "Ella mentioned an incident at work when he disappeared. Maybe we can dig up a lead."

Dylan nodded, agreeing, "Okay, okay. That's a start." He paused and looked to Fang. "Man, it has been so long...I can't believe she and Iggy are still together. Where are they even living now?"

Fang looked disbelievingly at Dylan, lips curled in a sneer. _That's_ what Dylan wondered about? How long Iggy had been macking on Ella?

He refocused on the important question with a roll of his eyes. "They're down in Tucson. We can get there early if we fly overnight."

Dylan visibly deflated. When he opened his mouth, he was hesitant. "Fang, no offense. I know this is super important, really, I do. But I haven't slept in, like, a day and a half."

Fang scowled. Sleep had been the last thing on his mind. Of course, now that Dylan brought it up, the fatigue hit him like a brick wall. The only sleep he'd gotten in the last two days was a couple of fitful hours on the ride home from Switzerland. Dylan hadn't slept at all.

He rubbed absently at the numb spot on top of his thigh, the spot where ter Borcht had injected him, and sighed.

"We should rest," Dylan insisted, and Fang grumbled his reluctant agreement. He hated it, but Dylan was right. When he was tired, he made mistakes, and he needed to be firing on all cylinders.

They made the short flight back into town and Fang let them into his hollow apartment, emptiness setting in as he hooked his keys on the wall. He could smell Max in the rooms, her skin and her shampoo and her lavender dryer sheets, and was dreading sleeping alone in their bed tonight.

He stopped to shoot a text to Valencia, stalling for time before he had to head down the hall. He typed out four different versions of his text, trying to figure out what to say. He knew she'd only worry more. She'd also probably stuff his head in an empanada if he avoided telling her what was going on.

By the time he'd finished, Dylan had already toed out of his shoes and was taking the back cushions off the couch. Fang nodded goodnight, stiffening in anticipation of _nothing_, and padded dejectedly to his bedroom. He scanned the still-made bed, the still half-open window, the still half-packed bag from the night Dylan had Seen him.

Max's absence hung over everything.

In a split-second decision, Fang lowered himself to the floor next to the bed, stretching out in the pale rectangle of moonlight that spilled in from the windowpane. He folded his arms across his knotted stomach and glared at the ceiling, wishing he didn't need to sleep at all but feeling the fatigue tugging at the corners of his thoughts.

He tossed and turned and couldn't figure out how to get his mind to just _shut up_ until he reached up to grab the pillow from Max's side of the bed. And there, ensconced in the delicate, girly, heady smell that was so _Max,_ sleep took him like the undertow of a rip current and he was finally able to rest.

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**A/N: **I feel so far behind! D= I am learning so much about writing by working through this story, but that makes for a LOT of back-editing to make sure each chapter I post is up to par. I mean, I'm always going back to make sure little details get mentioned or tied together, but there's a completely different level of editing that happens every time I post a new chapter. I'm supposed to do a last check for continuity, and end up doing what feels like a complete overhaul. Eep!

**Bookwriter16: **Thanks. =)

**thestupidgenius1123:** Max is always Max. I was trying to strike this balance between her worry/fear/desperation, but also make it clear that she's not completely broken yet. And yes, Dylan's Sight is definitely making itself useful! It's never a solve-all power, but it's definitely instrumental as they search for Max. I'm trying to give Fang's power some air-time, too, but right now Dylan's is making itself the most useful.

**Nola96: **Yeeeeeah, the parts with Max and Fang are just so _sad._ I'm glad it tugged on your heartstrings a little - that was the point! I mean, obviously the goal of the story is to find Max (...and the Flock...), and part of the driving force behind that is the romance between Max and Fang, but the romance isn't the point of the story itself. If I stuck in bits like this every chapter, I think it would be tacky and cheap and forced. But this chapter was perfect for it!

**KLoves2Read: **Definitely gross. Yech. But it gives just the right picture of exactly how pimply PimpleGuy is. May your trauma have already faded. =)

**Lustrex: **Cool, I'm glad it was refreshing! I toyed back and forth with whether to do Max POVs for this story at all, since we _are_ looking at it from Fang's perspective, the glimpses into her situation don't directly help Fang and Dylan move forward, and I wanted to keep the mystery in tact from the reader's perspective. But then again, we're only seeing her because Dylan Saw her, and like you noticed, what's there to see, even from Max's perspective, isn't really elucidating. And it's a break from Fang's perspective, and it lets us know where Max is at, and allows me to attempt a little character development on her end, too. And OMG I didn't even think of Dylan seeing her in her pajamas/underwear, haha! Your previous comments made me edit _this_ chapter to help explain how Dylan Saw her, but I didn't address the underwear bit. There are a couple of withholding pauses from Dylan, though, so read into those all you like.

**Olivia and Bookworm33: **Thank you, and thanks for reading!


	15. Chapter 14 - Oversleeping

**A/N: **You gaiz. Back-editing. It's a real thing. We should do PSAs...it doesn't matter how well-planned your story is. It will change once people start reading it and finding all your holes and your ideas to cover them mean that EVERYTHING MUST CHANGE.

This chapter's (relatively) short. It's mostly a transition chapter, but a few things happen, so it still moves okay I think. The next one is much longer. A round of applause to my lovely beta reader,** KLoves2Read**, for taking my over-excited emails in stride and sending me comments on the last-minute bits I added to this chapter faster than a speeding bullet.

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**CHAPTER 14 – OVERSLEEPING**

_"Faaaaang." She called his name in a drawn out hiss, distorted by the dull murmur that buzzed in his ears._

_"Max!" He could hear her! He was flying, shivering and cold and lost in a bigger cloud than he'd ever made the mistake of flying through, and he could hear her voice._

_"Faaaaang!"_

_His breath picked up and he whipped around, soaking his feathers in the cloying nimbus. It was like punching through jello, his wings growing heavier with each powerful down stroke. The murmuring intensified into a cacophonic roar, filling his head and threatening to drown out Max's cries._

_"Fang!"_

_She sounded closer. Like he could touch her if he could only find the edge of the cloud. "Max!" he cried out, voice wild with desperation. His heart was pounding in his throat, eyes wide with unbridled fear. The murmurs separated into voices, calm and detached, alarmingly loud, spewing mangled clips of the news that had kept Max glued to the couch for weeks._

_"- have issued an amber alert in response to the abduction of-"_

_He was choking; choking on the thick cloud, choking on the thin air, choking on the voices._

_"-tex, one of the top research firms in Japan, has gone public with findings-"_

_"Fang!" Her frenzied screech lanced through him like a harpoon, flooding him with despair. He was too far, he was losing her, he couldn't find her!_

_"-in honor of the sacrifices made, the NYPD is holding a ceremony in-"_

_"-iker David Maubry was killed and eaten by a pack of-"_

_"-illionaire Nino Pierpont, co-founder of ren-"_

_"-critical situation in-"_

_The roar was deafening, drowning out Max's pleas for help, covering up Fang's own agonized cries. His feathers felt like soggy cardboard as he curled in on himself, grasping his head and dropping like a stone. He waited for the cloud to thin out, but it only grew thicker, soupy, muddy with voices that screamed injustice until everything burned bright and suddenly there was Max, in chains and bruised and weeping because he had_failed_her._

_Her name tore from his throat, wild and desperate, letting her know he was_there_, he was_right there, _but she was deaf to his cries and when she turned from him, he saw that her wings were mangled stumps-_

There was a sharp sting on his cheek and he cried out, curled around Max's pillow and dripping with a cold sweat. There was a hand gripping his shoulder.

"Oh, geez, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you...I didn't...I mean..."

Fang blinked blearily. His eyelids felt sticky and swollen. It was the middle of the night and he had to squint to get Dylan's worried face to swim into focus, eyes burning. He growled and shoved him off, sitting up. "The hell?" he ground out and coughed raggedly, his throat raw.

"You were yelling. I mean, I heard you being restless, kind of thrashing around on the floor, but then you were yelling and I thought-"

"M'fine." Fang scrubbed his face with his palm and leaned his shoulder against the bed frame, cheek pressed into the side of the mattress. His jaw fell slack in-between dry swallows. The nightmare lingered heavy in his chest, an icy cold terror made sluggish with sleep.

Dylan stood up, eyeing Fang skeptically. He fidgeted for a moment and asked, "Do you want some water or something?"

Fang shook his head without looking up. He turned his face into the side of the bed, letting his hot breath puff into the mattress and waft back across his face.

"Okay. I'm going back to sleep." Dylan left with one last glance, pulling the bedroom door quietly shut behind him.

Fang eased himself back to the floor after a minute, making a face at the sweaty stickiness of the wood laminate beneath him. He rolled onto his side, clammy and shivering and not convinced he would get back to sleep tonight. He almost didn't want to – they should head out before the sun rose. Keep moving.

But sleep came for him anyway. He must have pulled the blanket from the bed and made himself a little nest right there on the floor. He woke with his long legs thoroughly tangled, sweating in the heat of a bright patch of sun. He groaned, squinting against the burning pink of his closed eyelids, before jackknifing up to stare out the window with a vicious curse. He ripped his legs from the covers, scrambling to stand on unsteady legs, muscles still groggy with sleep. The sun was already halfway up the sky. They were wasting time!

He hurried out of the bedroom to find Dylan humming to himself and making eggs in the kitchen. Bits of shell and egg white were clinging to the newly emptied carton and decorating the counter top with glistening puddles.

Fang stared incredulously as Dylan turned and smiled disarmingly.

"Glad you're up. Breakfast is just about ready. I figured you'd need some energy after...you know, last night." Dylan's smile faltered and he dropped his gaze nervously, turning back to the pan to pick out a sliver of eggshell. "I know _I_need something before we fly south."

Fang was seething. He growled, his voice froggy with sleep, "Why didn't you wake me? We should have left hours ago."

The spatula in Dylan's hand stilled and he shook his head with a wistful hum, still turned away from Fang. "What, no thank you?" He bent to peer at the eggs he was scrambling before adding offhandedly, "I haven't been up long, but I tried Looking for Hans again. Didn't find anything, but at least I have an idea of where he _isn't._"

Fang's grip on the doorframe tightened. "Which is why we need to go find out what happened to Iggy. Now."

Dylan sighed wearily and turned to give Fang a long-suffering stare, spatula hanging limp in his hand. There was egg drying on his shirt. "We don't know where to go next. If we did, sure, then we'd be wasting time. But right now, we've got nothing."

"Don't remind me." There was a low buzz as Fang's phone vibrated in his front pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the screen, and stuffed it right back into his pocket with a derisive hiss.

Dylan followed the movement, eyebrows drawn. "Don't you want to get that?"

Fang gave a one-shouldered shrug. "My boss wants me in New York. I told him I was busy. He's pissed."

Dylan frowned. "And he's calling you about it on a weekend?"

Fang shrugged again. He didn't want to admit it, but the eggs were starting to make his mouth water.

"Well, I hope you don't lose your job over it." Dylan searched his gaze for another moment but soon gave up, nodding sharply and turning back to poke at the browning eggs in the pan. He flipped the heat off and took the pan off the burner. "I'd love to borrow some clothes, by the way. Maybe steal your shower for a second. I've been wearing the same pair of underwear for two weeks."

Fang took in Dylan's rumpled attire. The man was right, he needed to be clean in a bad way. Fang could practically smell him from the other end of the kitchen. It wasn't enough to ruin his appetite, but it wasn't pretty, either. "Shower's through the bedroom. Clothes are in the right-hand drawers. We leave in ten."

"Sure thing, boss," Dylan drawled, scraping the eggs out onto plates.

Fang took his portion carefully and watched Dylan retreat down the hall. Within half a minute the plate was clean and spinning in the sink. He turned back into the bedroom, grabbing a change of clothes while he waited for the bathroom to open so he could brush his teeth.

Eight and a half minutes later, they were in the sky and pouring on the speed towards Tucson.

The familiar flight was only a couple of hours. Fang and Max had taken the trip more than a few times to spend the day with Ella and Iggy. He wished it were Max with him now. He'd go Imperceptible and fly right up behind her, wings synchronized just so, until he could grab her out of the sky. She'd shriek but she'd laugh, too, and he'd growl and nuzzle his way into that ticklish spot where her neck met her shoulder. She pretended, but he knew she didn't really mind it. She'd told him so.

Yeah. He wished Max were flying beneath him...

His thoughts turned dark and he found himself scowling down at the clouds, stuck back in the dream he'd been stubbornly ignoring since he woke. The streak of terror that lingered with echoes of Max's ghostly screams made his scrambled egg breakfast turn sour, and now he was high in the sky with nothing else to focus on. The thick clouds beneath him chased his thoughts until he was imagining all the worst things, set in a dark place where Max was being hurt, tested with god-knows-what, with no way to escape but a useless husband who had no idea how to get to her.

He had completely lost track of time when Dylan swooped in from behind him, startling him out of his reverie. "We're pretty close. Do they live _in_ in Tucson, or just outside of it?"

Fang blinked and looked down below, noticing a few familiar landmarks, and sucked in a fortifying breath. "They're pretty close to the city. Just another ten minutes."

They fell back into silence. Fang was glad for something else to think about as he hauled his bleeding heart back up out of his shoes. They soared over the canyon, past the thinning tree line, over the hamburger diner that Max loved and would always insist on when they were in town. And then there was Iggy's house, inconspicuous with its black shingle roof and backyard swimming pool like every other house on the street. He could see Ella's yellow Volkswagen parked out front with an unfamiliar blue sedan behind it.

Fang dipped a wing and wheeled around, gliding back over the house. Dylan missed the turn but caught Fang's eye as he sailed past.

"This it?"

Fang nodded, tightening his circle as Dylan turned to catch up.

Dylan followed Fang's gaze to the nondescript house below and hummed cheerfully, "Nice place. Are they married or just, you know, living together?"

"Not married," Fang replied. "Let's go."

"Yup," Dylan chirped.

Fang took one last sweeping glance at the horizon, dotted with cotton ball clouds and rust red mountain peaks, and began the decent to the house where Iggy wasn't.

* * *

**A/N: **Do we like Dylan as a messy chef? It was an afterthought, and now it's one of my favorite parts of the chapter. This guy... He is fun to write. I'm becoming so, so fond of him.

**Nola96: **Fang and Dylan, Dylan and Fang... they're really quite a pair, aren't they? Hopefully Fang will let Dylan actually _do_ something soon, besides just using him for his Sight. Hmmm... *wiggles eyebrows* It'll be a little bit, though. Hang tight. As far as Fang's fate goes, well...hang tight for that, too. It's coming. It's all coming. There's another teensy spot of Fax in here; I thought of you, haha. Not quite as cute as Fang curling around her pillow, but I think Fang does alright.

**Bookwriter16:** Hey, no jealousy necessary - you can _both_ review!

**j4bb3rwocky: **Man, I forgot about that earlier summary. I think even without that, though, you can guess where the story's headed easily enough, especially once Nudge goes missing. At least that part was a little bit of an "oh no" moment. I'm hoping for a few more. *fingers crossed*

**Lustrex: **Ooh, I could have been more clear there. Fang looking for a text from Nudge and seeing nothing was his self-reassurance that Nudge didn't have any problems contacting the kids. Like, she would have called him if something were wrong (couldn't contact Gazzy/Angel), but she didn't, so he was using that to convince himself that everything was fine. And lady, you mentioned eventually reading some of my M stuff - if you like squirmy awkward character interactions, you might really really like Loving You Slowly. Granted, the pov flip flops like a dying fish (which I recognize now because someone wonderful pointed out my POV flips in OoS, cough cough), but I'm still super proud of the awkward comedy I wrote in.

**KLoves2Read: **Expounding on Fang's and Dylan's abilities was one of the funner parts of story planning. I can't remember anymore at what point that came about...probably me trying to figure out what the heck Dylan's abilities were about, since JP never bothered to explain them (or...even _use_ them), and then just running with it. Also, Fang's ability as it's presented in the books is virtually useless. The boy needs to be able to _move_ while he's unseen. I always think of you when I post new chapters because most of these get all sorts of details added after you beta them. I always hope that makes it fun to reread them, even though you already know what happens (and what comes next).

**Read and review, guys! My reviewers make my heart jump for joy. Each and every one of you. Like little presents in my email inbox. **


	16. Chapter 15 - What Ella Knew

**Author's Note: **Thank you, KLoves2Read, for being my faithful beta-reader!

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**CHAPTER 15 - WHAT ELLA KNEW**

Fang angled his wings sharply, wheeling around in graceful arcs with Dylan following in a slow decent towards Ella and Iggy's house. He felt a flash of annoyance when Dylan smiled and gave a little wave to someone below. Fang searched for a second before spotting two soaked little kids, sprinklers sputtering in the grass around them, staring in wonder as the flying men disappeared from their line of sight.

And then they were there. Flight-numbed feet skidded onto the white cement. Fang had to skip a little to lose momentum on his way up the driveway. Their feathers quivered after hours of long-distance flying and the men left their wings halfway unfurled to let some of the heat seep out. At the front door, Fang rapped against the red painted wood twice with the backs of his knuckles before stuffing his hands into his pockets so he wouldn't fidget.

Ella answered the door after a beat or two and her red-rimmed eyes lit up, wide with hope. "Fang! Did you hear something about Iggy?"

Fang's pursed lips were all the answer she needed and her face crumpled. She looked curiously at Dylan, eyes setting on his wings, and turned back to Fang. "Who's this?"

Dylan stood up a little straighter, drawing her attention. "You're Ella, right? Her sister?" He stuck out his hand. "We met briefly, at Total's wedding. I'm Dylan."

She shook her head and fumbled briefly, struggling to remember, but reached to shake his outstretched hand anyway. She was looking to Fang for answers when another voice called from inside.

"El, I can't find the peanut butter anywhere. And have you got pickles anywhere? El-Ella? Ella?" Brigid appeared behind her in the door and did a double take. "Fang?"

Fang almost glanced back at the blue car. "Didn't know you'd be here."

Brigid smiled sadly. "Yeah, things are all locked up at work, Max probably mentioned it to you? So I was already taking some personal time when Ella called me. I only got here yesterday." She turned her sympathetic smile onto her friend and wrapped one arm around Ella's shoulders, giving her a tight squeeze.

Ella spared a wobbly smile for Brigid and opened her door a little wider. "Come in, guys, please. I know it's a long flight."

Brigid finally looked past Fang to Dylan, eyes sweeping over the rich brown feathers fanned out behind him, and blinked in surprise. "I didn't know there were more of you."

Fang shuffled in, sidling past Brigid's pregnant belly. It was already a little bigger than it had been at the CSM function just two weeks ago. He caught Ella's eye and tipped his head to the side to indicate the blonde man following him in. "Dylan's..._helping_ me. Iggy's not the only one missing."

"Did Max never come home?" Ella asked, looking completely stricken. "Mom mentioned something, but she didn't talk long." She let the door fall shut and ushered them over to the tan corduroy couch that faced the kitchen bar. Her eyes were wide and bright with fear, and Fang thought she looked so much like Val had when he had broken the news about Max in the tense CSM office.

Brigid paled and sank down onto the ottoman across from Fang and Dylan, wincing with her hand pressed against her lower back. Her worried eyes searched Fang's. "What do you mean, Max never came home? She called in sick on Monday. I'm the one who took the call!"

Fang's answering silence was grim.

Dylan's face screwed up and he shook his head. He tried refocusing the conversation, "Do you know about Dr. Hans Gunther-Hagen?"

Ella's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "The hack-job blockhead who tried to make Max's 'perfect other half' from a test tube?"

The men both flinched, Dylan with embarrassment, Fang in defense.

It took Ella a moment before her eyes landed on Dylan, widening in comprehension. "That's you, isn't it? I remember you now! Iggy and Gazzy dumped the punch bowl on you when you wouldn't quit asking Max for a dance at the reception!"

Brigid just looked confused. "I'm sorry, what? Perfect other half?"

Dylan's cheeks were flaming. He glanced nervously at Fang. "Was supposed to be. But it's not...I mean, it doesn't matter," he stammered. "The important thing is, Hans has been systematically going after the Flock and we're trying to figure out where he's keeping them."

Brigid balked. "The _whole_ Flock? But you just said Max-"

"Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel have been taken, too."

"Oh no, the _text." _Ella looked aghast at Brigid.

"The one you ignored from your mom?" Brigid's eyes went wide.

Ella nodded miserably. "She just said to 'call her,' but then you had just gotten here and I just...I didn't..." She turned back to Fang, head cocked, chin wobbly, and whispered, "The _whole_ Flock?" She sunk down on to the recliner next to Brigid, pulling her legs up under her.

Brigid shook her head slightly, rejecting the idea. "It's just not right. You guys deserve to live in peace after everything you were put through. And it's been so long since we had any activity like that." She looked up at Fang. "Any idea what drew him back out of the woodwork?"

Fang furrowed his brows, looking deadly serious. "It's a long story." He turned to Ella, expectant. "Listen, El, what do you know about what happened to Iggy?" He could have probably made the trip to the fire station Iggy worked out of, but he already knew Ella. He wanted to ask her first. And make sure that she was holding together better than _he_ was. She _was_ his sister-in-law, and her might-as-well-be-fiancé was missing.

Ella's eyes blinked wide, switching mental gears.

Brigid shifted to face her, placing a comforting hand on her knee and nodding in encouragement.

Ella took a steeling breath and spoke softly. "I only know a little bit. Everyone says the bomb threat was routine, but when Iggy went to deactivate it, it kind of...it didn't _explode,_ they said, not like fire and shrapnel, but there was a cloud of gas or something?" Her eyes searched for Fang's and stayed there. "They told me that it knocked the whole squad unconscious, and when they came to, they were all fine, but Iggy...Iggy was just _gone_." She bit back a whimper and drew her lip between her teeth, watching Fang nervously. She clasped Brigid's hand tightly in her own and worried at her lip with her front teeth.

Dylan cocked his head, squinting a little in thought. "Do they still have the bomb casing? Sometimes you can tell a lot from that, you know, just by how it's made or where the materials came from."

Ella nodded, sniffling softly. "I have it here, actually. They gave it to me after trying to run some diagnostic tests and coming up short. The plan was to mail it to the CSM to see if they could find out anything, but then Brigid said they've been in lockdown over that stupid computer virus, so I've been holding onto it."

Fang spoke softly, "Let's see it."

Ella slipped off the recliner with a tight smile and made her way over to the cluttered breakfast table, Fang trailing after her like a shadow. Dylan stood to follow but lingered a few steps behind, hooking his thumbs through his belt loops.

Fang hovered over Ella's shoulder as she dug through her backpack, rustling through papers and pulling out books and then lifting something out of the bottom.

"Here it is." She presented Fang with a crude black box, thin aluminum and probably big enough to hold a pair of shoes. There were a few wires protruding here and there and what looked like the nozzle to an aerosol container exposed where a piece of the exterior had been carefully pried away.

He inspected the box carefully, turning it over in his hands before narrowing his eyes and peering at one corner. His thumb rubbed over a lightly engraved logo, a block-letter 'IHL' in a compressed oval. It looked familiar in an uncanny way that he couldn't place. He stared at it, willing his memory to help him out.

He could hear Dylan and the girls talking lowly behind him. Dylan was filling them in on what they knew. Ella was becoming increasingly anxious, taking shallow breaths and whimpering softly, with Brigid's soft voice injecting comfort.

Ella pleaded, "He's got to come home. You have to bring him back. Promise me?"

Fang turned to see her with her small hands clasped, staring imploringly up at Dylan as Brigid looked on.

Dylan nodded solemnly, brows lifted in sincerity. "We'll bring them all home."

"It's just... It's just that everything's about to change, and I don't think I can do it without him." Ella choked out the last few words with a sob. Fang's stomach clenched and he placed the box carefully on the counter before making his way over to his weeping sister-in-law.

"Hey. Hey, Ella, hey," he whispered softly.

As soon as she felt him next to her, she turned and curled herself into his arms. He held her as she cried, stroking her hair and offering her tenderness he usually reserved for Max. Brigid stood close, trailing her nails soothingly across Ella's back. She gave Fang a strained smile, mouthing 'thank you,' and he gave a small nod.

It took a minute before Ella's crying quieted with soft sniffles. Her small hands twisted into Fang's shirt and she took a shuddering breath before whispering, so softly, "I'm pregnant."

Fang pulled back, looking at her carefully. Having Iggy go missing after eight years of peace was tough enough, but to be alone for this? "Are you sure?"

She nodded miserably and hiccupped, mumbling into his shirt, "That's why I called Brigid. She was the only one who knew, and then when Iggy went missing, I didn't know what else to do." She pulled out of Fang's grasp and self-consciously wrapped her arms around her stomach. "It's not like we were trying for it or anything. It wasn't planned." Her laugh was hollow, "We're not even engaged or anything yet. But we talked about it, you know? About what it would be like, and he was always so giddy about the idea of babies. And now he's...I don't know...somewhere, probably hurt, or worse, and..." Ella's face crumpled as she choked up, flushing delicately as her features dripped down into a heartbreaking frown.

Brigid shushed her softly, drawing her into a side hug.

Dylan reached out to rub her shoulder gently, bending his head to look her in the eye and speaking gently, "We will bring him home. I promise. Fang and I will figure out where Hans is keeping them and we'll get them out, okay?"

Ella turned into Dylan, her arms threading around him weakly, to whisper a watery 'thank you' into his chest.

Fang stared into space gloomily, eyes drifting back across the room towards the spent gas bomb. He needed to _move. _Find Gunther-Hagen. Find his family. Find Max. But he had nothing; he needed clues. He scratched at his thumb with one nail, picturing that little logo on the corner of the bomb and wondering what the hell it meant.

His gaze trailed across the living room wall where Ella had hung a series of skylines over the television set. They were all relatively recognizable cities: Seattle, New York, Chicago. He cocked his head at the New York piece and glanced back at the box. Finally, the files buried in the filing cabinet of his memory shuffled and everything clicked.

"The Institute for Higher Living!"

The other three turned towards him, confusion in equal measure written across their faces. Fang shook his head excitedly. "The logo on the bomb, 'IHL.' It's a...it's a bastardized version of the Itexicon logo, the one they used for the Institute for Higher Living."

Fang was met with blank stares. He spread his palms excitedly. "The Institute is in New York City. They've gotta be in New York!" Which meant that _he_ had to go to New York. His breath caught, turning stale in his lungs, and his smile faltered. He felt his phone, cool and heavy in his pocket against his thigh, waiting with more than one irate voicemail from his boss.

Because Marty just _had_ to have him in New York.

And just then, he really couldn't remember what made the New York job so important that Marty wouldn't get off his ass about it.

Dylan's eyes brightened. "Okay, we can work with that!"

Ella wilted. "Isn't that at least a two day flight?"

Dylan shook his head fervently, bouncing on his toes a little. "Not if we take a plane!" He rounded on Fang. "Didn't you just say they really wanted you in New York for some _National_ article?"

Fang's mouth ran dry, his words scratchy, "Yup."

"Perfect! We'll go tomorrow first thing, talk to your boss, get at least one ticket taken care of." Dylan paused, squinting at the ceiling with his mouth half-open, and nodded slowly to himself. "I can handle a ticket to New York. Yeah." He looked back at Fang, still nodding. "I can pay my way, and you'll be covered, and we'll be checking out this Institute place before it's dark." His easy grin lit up his whole face.

The warning bells in Fang's head made him want to put on the brakes, but then he caught the flash of hope on Ella's face and found himself swallowing the words on his cotton tongue. "Sure."

Sure, he could leverage Marty for a plane ticket to New York. Sure, he could even let Dylan come with. But he sure as hell wasn't going to leave the _National Geographic_ with a one-way ticket to a possible trap without mining Marty for information first. Just in case.

Ella shot him a watery smile. "If anyone can find them, it's you."

Brigid squeezed her hand gently, one thumb running over her knuckles, and Ella turned with a pained smile grimace to her friend. Brigid scooted over to make room for Ella to curl into her side in a half-hug.

Fang nodded, forcing a small smile. Trap or not, if Max was in New York, he would get there.

He'd even let Dylan tag along.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Thank you, those of you who've been reading, and especially those who've taken the time to review the things I've written. I'm always learning from your feedback, always taking what you say seriously, so that each chapter is better than the last.

**Question: **What do you think of Fang's emotional journey and his focus so far? In writing this, I keep flipping back and forth between having him be Flock-focused versus Max-focused. The Flock is family, but at the end of the day, Max is the one that his heart is breaking for, the one who's absence makes him feel sick. It's not that he _wouldn't_ look for the Flock if he still had Max; but she'd be at his side and they'd be able to handle everything together. For now, he's just got Dylan. Who _we_ like, but Fang's still working on it. I really hope I've written Fang's POV in such a way that his devotion to Max is clear, to the point where he struggles to always think of the entire Flock, but not the the point where it looks like he doesn't care about them. He _does_ care. It's just that _everyone_ is missing and it sucks. I'm finding it's a very fine line to write and I'm constantly worrying that I haven't done it well.

**Nola96: **Dylan gets better and better, doesn't he? At the end of the day, he always has good intentions. And I'm glad you liked Fang's night terror. =) Writing dreams is kind of fun, because you can bend the rules of reality. I think I also like the concentration of emotion that you can convey with a dream. Fang is working hard to be stoic as ever, but in his dream, everything breaks down and the fact that Max is missing is completely crushing in a way that he can't cope with.

**KLoves2Read: **Messy kitchen Dylan is the best. It was kind of fun writing something that he's _not_ perfect at. I mean, clearly he has his flaws, but JP didn't give us anything that he wasn't naturally gifted at. So yes, now there's egg mess all over the kitchen and Dylan gets to be humanized a little bit. And also feed eggs to Fang, because that boy is so worried for Max that he might not have thought to eat on his own.

**j4bb3rwocky: **You're right, Fang _was_ intense in the last chapter. Part of it was my attempt at writing the fiery, emotionally-charged disorientation of waking up late when there's something really important to do. Part of it is because Max is missing and that's completely terrifying to him in a way that he hasn't dealt with yet. Part of it is probably overblown on my part - writing Fang's emotional progression into breaking down over the course of so many chapters has become a challenge, and it's good for me, but I'm sure there are parts where I'm failing. So it could very well be that there's just too much intensity in the last chapter. I hope this chapter wasn't too laid-back in comparison.

**Bookwriter16: **So what have you thought about the last few chapters? Fang keeps finding more Flock members missing! Do you think he'll get caught before he gets to the others?

**Lustrex: **Hmm, I wasn't going to make a big deal about explaining why Nudge never called Fang or when/how exactly she got taken, but maybe I should? Well, maybe not a "big deal," but maybe I should say something; I wasn't planning on explaining it at all. That might be what I need to smooth over a rough spot in an upcoming chapter, though. I'll have to think on that.


	17. Chapter 16 - Meeting Marty Dayburn

**A/N: **This chapter was a bear to write. Endless thanks to the lovely **KLoves2Read** for her encouragement and beta-reading skills. Please do read and review!

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**CHAPTER 16 - MEETING MARTY DAYBURN**

Fang said goodbye to a tearful Ella that afternoon with a bad taste in his mouth. She'd tried to smile but couldn't stop crying, and when he finally turned away, he was blinking furiously, Adam's apple caught mid-swallow.

The flight home was mercifully silent, save for the low whistling of the wind through broad feathers. It was good that Dylan didn't have some misguided compulsion to fill the air with small talk or embarrassing observations about the way Fang spent the first five minutes of the flight, sniffing and running his wrist along his nose. Or to probe until Fang spilled the suspicions that were forming about just what kind of a man Marty Dayburn was.

He didn't know if he wanted to tell Dylan at all. Definitely not before he had the chance to decide, one way or another.

Still, he'd trade Dylan's silence to have Nudge back in a heartbeat. Any of the Flock, really.

His frown deepened. It was unsettling, to realize how easy it was for him to rag on Dylan. The guy had actually been kind of helpful so far. But it was the obnoxious brand of helping. It was help that wasn't asked for, help that kept coming, help that was shoved in your face, whether or not you wanted it. It was endlessly irritating.

Not to mention, if the rescue came down to a fight, he still didn't trust the guy further than he could throw him.

And he definitely didn't trust the guy not to blurt everything in front of Marty.

Fang figured he would go in early the next morning to see his boss, to get that ticket to New York, and try to feel out how involved Marty was. Fang didn't know enough about the guy yet to judge how quickly he'd realize that Fang was suspicious of him, but he knew he needed to be in and out before the thought even crossed Marty's mind.

He had to play it cool. He could do 'cool.'

His stomach soured as it dawned on him that the danger had been right under his nose the whole time. He'd been over-worked by Marty for two months and hadn't once thought he was anything works than a micro-managing supervisor. There were probably all kinds of red flags. If he had just _noticed_...

When they got back, the empty apartment was veiled in long shadows.

Dylan's eyes burned into Fang as he took up his place on the couch, but he kept his mouth shut.

Fang retreated to the bedroom, groaning at the stiffness in his shoulders from last night's sleeping arrangements. He wondered how things had changed so much from the days when he was sleeping in trees.

He toed out of his shoes on the way across the floor and gripped the cold edge of his laptop, pulling it from the desk and turning back to the bed. He eyed it sadly before giving in with a heavy sigh, bending to pick the pillow and the blanket up from underfoot and spreading them back over the mattress robotically. He climbed to sit on top of the bedspread with the weight of the computer balanced on his lap. Maybe if he could bring himself to finish roughing out the article he'd started about Algeria, Marty would be more inclined to agree to fund a plane ticket to New York.

His fingers stilled. Who was he kidding? If Marty really was Gunther-Hagen's pawn, he'd jump at Fang's eagerness to go. If he wasn't, well, no number of finished articles would be enough to smooth over Fang's transgressions in one meeting.

The laptop clicked shut and was dropped carelessly to the floor, clothes peeled off and shoved over the edge of the mattress, empty covers pulled back. Fang wriggled beneath them, finding the residual warmth from where he'd sat before it seeped away altogether, leaving him alone and kind of cold. He could smell _Max_ everywhere. The comfort was bittersweet.

This time, when he found sleep, it was hard and dreamless.

The next morning began bright and early with an alarm and a sleepy-eyed, adrenaline-fueled clothing change. He refused to repeat yesterday's late start. He jammed a toothbrush in his mouth and went to rouse Dylan, shaking his shoulder and jerking his head towards the bathroom.

"Two min's," he garbled through his toothpaste, a wave of relief washing over him when Dylan got right up and disappeared to take care of morning business.

Fang spit into the kitchen sink, leaving his toothbrush by the drain and grabbing some quick eats from the counter top. He tossed a banana and two granola bars at Dylan when he reemerged.

"C'mon."

Dylan followed him out the door, bars shoved in his back pocket, banana in hand. By the time they landed outside _National Geographic - Denver's_ offices, Dylan was fisting a limp peel and two crumpled, crumb-spewing wrappers.

Fang thrust his arm out, braced against the door frame and blocking Dylan from following him. "Stay here."

Dylan looked genuinely confused. "What? Why?"

"One, it's _my_ boss, at _my _job, and it's my responsibility to talk to him. Not yours. Two, I've let you help so far, but you're..." _Only eight,_ he thought, but the words felt too cruel. He rephrased weakly, "...you're not used to this kind of stuff. Doesn't matter how simple, I'm going on my own. Make sure it's done right." To make sure he could get the plane ticket. To make sure he could glean some damning info without being found out. Maybe to make sure that if things went bad, there was still someone who would find them.

Maybe he should tell Dylan what was up?

Dylan slouched, dejected, and spoke before Fang could finish the thought. "I'll just...wait by the front, I guess." He took two steps backward before breaking eye contact and turning away, heading off to lean against the floor-to-ceiling glass walls that separated the quiet lobby of the business center from the hurried world outside.

_Whatever, _Fang thought with an internal eye-roll, turning away from Dylan's kicked-puppy act. He'd deal with it later.

He powered across the lobby without a backward glance and shouldered his way through the door into the stairwell, making his way to the third floor. His heart was pounding by the time he reached the landing. He hadn't seen Marty since before he left for Africa. Before Max disappeared.

The place was quiet on a Monday before hours, but Marty would be sitting in his office, pouring over some bullshit project and waiting for 8am to hit so he could look disapprovingly over his glasses at anyone who came in late.

Fang slipped past dark offices undisturbed, looking ahead to Marty's glass-walled office. The high back of the leather Lazzaro Collection executive chair was facing the door. The phone was off the hook, cord spiraling taught towards the seated occupant. Marty's free hand came into view, palm up and curled limply, before motioning sharply and clenching his fist. The timber of his raised voice carried down the hallway, sharp and annoyed and barely controlled.

Fang rapped his knuckles softly on the doorframe. Marty half-turned, beckoning Fang with a scowl and a jerk of his head. He swiveled the rest of the way around, round form facing front as Fang stepped inside.

"Yes. Yes, yes, yes, I know, I- Of course, do you think I'm an idiot?" His nostrils flared, wide enough that Fang could see a stray nose hair, thick and black, beginning to curl out of one side. A small muscle at the corner of his unkempt eyebrow pulse as Marty's angry flush traveled up into his receding hairline. "Listen, I can't talk right now. Keep me updated." The phone collided with its cradle and Marty tilted back in his chair with a groan, pushing his glasses up past his forehead and massaging his temples with his meaty fingertips. "I don't get paid enough for this shit."

He peeked at Fang once before scrubbing his face and leaning forward to prop his elbows on the corner of his desk blotter, staring intently with beady eyes.

Fang straightened under Marty's intense stare, hands hanging loosely at his sides, keeping his face cool. He could feel his heartbeat beneath his jaw.

"The real money's in side jobs. D'ya know that, Ride?"

Well, that wasn't what he expected to hear. "Sir?"

"Find work that you can stand. Something with benefits, you know, retirement options and a health plan. And then find a side-business that sets you up for success. Even better if you can work it from your day job. Kill two birds with one stone." Marty chuckled, a thick sound from the back of his throat.

Fang's stomach twisted.

When he didn't get a response, Marty's sick smirk slipped from his lips and his eyes flicked back down to his neatly organized desk. He fingered a cream-colored sheet of letterhead before moving on to a saddle-bound brochure with poorly photoshopped helicopters on the cover.

He eyed Marty carefully, evaluating. What kind of side jobs was _he_ involved in? Fang could barely picture him overpowering Max and delivering her to Gunther-Hagen. The guy couldn't handle missing a blue pen from his desk because he needed two of each color.

When Marty finally spoke again, the disdain was palpable. "Haven't seen you in-house lately." As if he hadn't completely chewed Fang out the last time they spoke. As if Fang hadn't ignored his phone call Sunday morning. The manager of _National Geographic_'s Denver offices kept his eyes focused on his desk as he shuffled crisp stacks of papers and cross-stacking them neatly. "What's the latest excuse?"

Fang strode forward to the desk and tapped the edge anxiously before shoving his hands in his pockets instead. "I'm ready the for New York assignment."

Marty froze. He set his papers down, and slowly looked up at Fang over the wire rims of his glasses. He lifted his eyebrows mockingly, creating deep furrows on his forehead and further up onto his hairless scalp. "You made it very clear that you didn't want the New York assignment when you missed the flight, Ride."

Fang eyed him stoically. "I'm ready for it now."

Marty observed him wordlessly before turning back to reposition his stapler with a light, mocking cough. He spoke casually, "Well, you'll have to wait. It's been postponed."

Fang huffed, nostrils flaring. "What do you mean postponed?" He needed that flight. Didn't Marty need him on that flight?

Marty looked up, deadpanning, "I mean it's postponed. We need to wait before we move forward. I still want you on it, but the, uh, the company there has to navigate some red tape." He removed his reading glasses to place them on the desk, carefully folding the temples and lining them up next to the row of document stamps. He leaned back, hands folded in front of him, stare dripping with condescension. "Red tape that came up because you missed your flight."

Fang's jaw tightened, pocketed fists clenching. He shifted his gaze to the Denver skyline, harsh in the early morning light. His red flags about Marty were still flying high. So what was up with Gunther-Hagen that Marty wouldn't do all he could to get Fang on the next flight to Newark? What if something had happened to Max? To the flock?

Marty let out a long-suffering sigh and stood up, walking over to place his thick, sweaty hand on Fang's shoulder. Fang flinched. Marty looked up the half foot to meet his eyes, lips curling in a condescending sneer. "Look, Nick. I know things are hard, with your wife MIA and all. I get it."

_I bet you do,_ Fang thought bitterly.

"But the cops will be on it if they aren't already. They'll catch their guy. I'm sure she'll turn up in another day or two, right as rain. In the meantime, I need you available. At _National._ To do your job." He squeezed Fang's shoulder with his sausage fingers, eyes hardening as a tight smile stretched across his teeth. "Take a day off, huh? Be here tomorrow and we'll talk more about New York. Be ready to travel."

Fang ground his teeth and frowned at Dayburn's hand on his shoulder. "I thought you wanted me in New York right away."

Dayburn retracted his hand and shook his head, pointing right between Fang's eyes. "Stop screwing with your job, Ride, and there won't be delays. Be here tomorrow morning. Or we'll have more to discuss than getting you to New York, capiche?" He slid back behind his desk, falling heavily in his chair and taking a long, slow pull from his steaming coffee mug. His eyes were already back on the work in front of him.

Fang lingered for a hot second, pissed and feeling like his hands were tied. He set his jaw and turned, hurrying out of the office with anger churning in the pit of his stomach. It made his rising sense of anxiety burn. He still had to get to New York. It couldn't wait for tomorrow morning. He burst out of the stairwell, taking long strides across the lobby floor.

Dylan saw him right away and pushed himself off the glass wall in the foyer to trail behind. "Well?" he asked. "What happened?"

Fang shouldered through the rotating door and took off down the sidewalk. When Dylan caught up, he bit out harshly, "We're on our own."

Dylan cursed under his breath and hustled to keep pace with Fang. "What do you mean 'we're on our own'? You said your boss wanted you in New York?"

Fang's steps quickened, striking sharply against the cement.

Dylan shuffled to keep up. "So, what, we're going to go on our own, without the CSM _or _National? We don't even know where to start! We don't know where they are, or what to look for, and I keep telling you, man, I don't think Max is even there!"

Fang stopped so suddenly that Dylan would've bumped right into him if Fang hadn't turned around and thrown his curled fist into Dylan's jaw. "Shut UP!" Fang yelled hoarsely and turned away with a hiss, long fingers pressed to his forehead and his reddened fist hanging limp at his side.

_I don't know what I'm doing. _The forlorn thought echoed through Fang's mind, bouncing off the sides of his skull and drowning out almost everything else. His face was drawn in a silent cry and he fought against his thick throat to catch his breath, eyes burning. Dylan, still upright, rubbed his jaw and watched Fang warily.

Fang took a handful of rickety breaths and forced the words out, voice catching embarrassingly, "I think Marty's involved."

Dylan stilled. "What do you mean, 'involved'? What, like, he knows where the Flock is?"

Fang straightened, turning to face Dylan fully, and grunted to clear his throat. "I think he's the one kidnapping the Flock. And getting paid for it." His lips twisted into a disgusted grimace.

Dylan asked the obvious question, "So why hasn't he taken you yet?"

Fang laughed humorlessly, "I haven't exactly been following orders the past week. I wasn't where he expected me. Now he's saying the trip to New York is _'postponed'_ because I didn't take it right away." His eyes lost focus as he retreated into his thoughts, thinking back through Marty's expectations of him over the past week, in terms of making appointments. He hadn't met any of them.

"Let's just go to the airport."

Fang blinked, bringing Dylan back into focus.

He was nodding to himself, psyching himself up. "If you're right that he's involved, he won't expect you to be in New York _tonight._ We'll get there quick enough on a plane, especially if we leave right away, and head off Hans before your boss even knows you've left. This is good." He met Fang's eyes, buzzing with hopeful energy. "You recognized that one logo, so we'll start there. And I'll keep Looking, with my Sight, you know? We'll keep going until find your family." He gripped Fang's elbow and looked at him seriously. "We _will _find Her. We'll find all of them. We'll get them home safe, Fang."

Fang pulled away from Dylan's grip, frowning deeply. "We might be walking right into a trap."

Dylan shook his head, then nodded loosely in concession, "Well, maybe. But he doesn't know about me, right? And Hans probably still thinks I'm ter Borcht's hostage. We can work that in our favor."

Fang still wasn't sure he trusted Dylan's usefulness in a fight, but he had to admit that even a little surprise could be a big advantage. He took a haggard breath before nodding curtly.

"Let's get to the airport."

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**A/N:** Thank you again to everyone who took the time to review; I'm so grateful for each and every one. You guys rock.

**Nola96: **Thanks for catching my spelling slip-up! I corrected it pretty quick, so probably no one else saw it. Probably. And for your prize, Fang cracks just a little more in this chapter, and I can tell you there's some more where that came from. Actually, the next three Fang/Dylan chapters are pretty rife with it.

**Lustrex:** I have such a love for the wings. There's too much fan writing out there where they're limited to a utilitarian transport/fashion hassle. I try to always write in some "wing language," since these kids all have six actual limbs and the feathery ones are too cool to ignore. And...dundundun is right. That's all I'll say for now.

**KLoves2Read: **Haha, yes, you were my 100th review. That's crazy! It's been incredible to have the little bit of readership I have and to be getting such encouraging reviews.

**Bookwriter16: **We all like to have faith in Fang. =) What about Dylan? Do you think he's been helpful yet, or just annoying? Do you think he'll be able to help Fang in New York?

**thestupidgenius:** Thanks for your notes on chapter 14. I'm so excited that you feel invested in what happens. And your reviews are always fantastic, because your favorite bits usually coincide with my favorite bits and that's really validating. I _love_ writing Val and Fang. Love it. It's this fantastic mix of awkward and comforting and stubbornness and affection. And yes, please, keep telling me lovely things about my plot development and characters. Even if you've said it before, it's encouraging to hear as the story moves on. Like, I don't want to drop the ball or anything! And reader reviews are a great barometer for that.

**So what do you guys think about Marty? Is he living up to your expectations of what a sleazeball he is? Do you have any predictions for New York? I'd love to hear 'em!**


	18. Chapter 17 - Remembering New York

**Author's Note: **Dearest thanks as always to **KLoves2Read** for being my beta reader.

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**CHAPTER 17 – REMEMBERING NEW YORK**

Fang's skin crawled all the way to the airport, the conversation with Marty slashing through every train of thought until he finally gave in and tried to sift for clues. Was the off-hand advice about high-paying side jobs really as transparent as it seemed? The thought of his boss's grubby hands on his wife made him see red. It lit a fire under him to know that Marty took her captive while Fang was working for him in Africa, tied up where he couldn't do a thing about it.

Well, this was him doing something about it.

He hurried ahead of Dylan through the concourse, reading his boarding pass compulsively and fidgeting all through security. He knew winging it to New York instead would take a full two days of travel at least, but it was still hard not to feel like they were wasting time. Especially when airport security pulled Dylan out of the queue for a pat-down (_what's that on your back, sir?_). They gave Fang a hard time when he flashed his special-issue medical card, explaining the wings but lacking Dylan's name. While Fang was busy arguing with security, his shoes and belt were marked as 'unclaimed' and 'a possible threat,' which meant it took him another ten minutes to convince security that his beat-up sneakers really were just shoes.

By the time the men collapsed into the cracking vinyl seats in the airplane cabin, Fang's jaw ached and his skin itched. His thumb rubbed hard across the numb patch on his thigh, the edge of his nail catching on the denim over and over, until Dylan grabbed his wrist and hissed, "_Quiddit!"_

Fang could tell Dylan was itching to say more, so he turned away to stare out the window instead, crossing his legs and folding his arms across his chest.

Dylan sighed, a long and weary breath, and finally turned to face front, muttering, "You can't keep ignoring me if you want me to actually help."

Fang pushed his forehead against the Plexiglas, eyebrows creased low. What did Dylan want from him, anyway? It wasn't like he had a plan. He didn't even remember where the Institute was; only that they'd had to go underground to find it.

He deflected all of Dylan's attempts at conversation with half-there grunts. Dylan made one final attempt to get him to talk about what they were going to do when they got there before rolling his eyes and turning to face front, hopefully for the duration of the flight, with aggravation radiating from his squared shoulders.

Fang felt a cruel thrill that his bad mood was rubbing off, and then there was that pesky twinge of guilt, back for more. The guy hadn't wavered in his resolve to help. Not even when Fang decked him outside of his office.

He kind of thought he should regret that more, but he really didn't.

He took a second to side-eye Dylan, taking in his bedraggled appearance. He looked better than he had in the kennel, now that he'd had a shower and a shave. But his face was drawn, with dark circles under his closed eyes, and Fang wondered for the first time how much this trip was really taking out of him. He was following Fang to New York City on his own dime to confront the psycho who made him, to rescue the Flock that had shunned him, and a woman that Dylan was doomed to always want but never have.

Fang gulped at his tiny plastic cup of water, trying to rinse out the bitter taste in his mouth. Everything sucked, he knew that much, and he'd feel a million times better once he knew Max and the Flock were safe.

They spent the rest of the plane ride in silence, Dylan apparently trying to nap while Fang wallowed in his aggravation and anxiety, too unfocused to think any more about what they'd do once they landed. Of course, that was the first question Dylan asked as they broke out onto the sidewalk outside of JFK.

"Do we even have a plan?"

Fang sighed wearily. He felt calmer than he'd been when they got on the plane, but he still felt way out of his depth. He hoped Dylan couldn't tell how small he felt as he bluffed his way through. "We're going to look for a run-down subway station."

Dylan looked skeptical. "Yeah? That's where this 'Institute for Higher Living' operates? Out of an underground tunnel?"

Fang nodded. "That's how we found it before."

"'Before' meaning...?"

"Back when we were just starting to fight Itex. Before you came around."

"Ah." Dylan nodded. His arms scissored as he walked behind Fang, hopping a little to keep up. "And you think you'll still be able to get in that way?"

"Got anything better?"

"Nuh-uh, sorry," Dylan chirped. "I'll keep my eyes out, though. Looking for them, I mean. You know."

Fang pressed his lips together, nodding sharply, and fought back an eye roll. "Yeah. Thanks."

They trekked through the city, down dirty sidewalks and past weird little street corners and bumping shoulders with what felt like half the human race. Fang was looking all around as they moved, trying in vain to remember where they had gone down into the subway the first time.

Truth was, absolutely nothing looked familiar. Not even the things that he figured were supposed to. He had to do a double-take when they passed the massive AFO Schmidt toy store, the one where he _knew_ he remembered Angel weaseling Celeste out of a random lady, but the storefront looked completely alien to him.

The longer the shadows got, the faster Fang walked, until Dylan, huffing behind him, grabbed him around the bicep and pulled him to a stop.

"What?" Fang snarled.

"Just ten minutes, man. Let's grab some hotdogs from the corner or something. We haven't eaten all day."

Fang groaned, scrubbing his hand through his unkempt hair. Now that he was standing still, he registered the long, dull ache traveling from the soles of his feet up to his knees, throbbing in his hips. He absently thumbed that numb patch on his thigh and nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, sure."

There was a street stand nearby with a bored Ethiopian leaning on his fist, watching the dogs turn on the rolling grill. He narrowed his eyes when Fang handed him a crisp fifty dollar bill, inspecting it from all angles, before grinning toothily and preparing the large order. Fang thanked him quickly, fisted the steaming paper bag, and headed over to perch awkwardly on the far edge of the street bench where Dylan had collapsed.

He was Staring blankly, the corners of his lips drawn down, and he startled when Fang tossed a water bottle and the bag with half of the food into his lap. He mumbled a 'thanks' before cramming his mouth full of steaming street food. He groaned in ecstasy and let his eyes roll back into his head.

Fang found himself silently agreeing, scarfing down his six hotdogs in record time. As he chewed, he watched Dylan carefully. The break from walking was long overdue, but it Dylan hadn't stopped Looking. His brows were tense and his pupils oscillated dizzyingly, expanding and contracting. Fang had to look away.

"Finding anything?"

It took a few seconds for Dylan to blink and turn to Fang, looking grim. "Nothing worth Looking at." He took another bite and chewed slowly, swallowing with a gulp. "I've been trying to find Iggy, or Nudge, or the kids. Hans." He looked down sheepishly, cheeks turning ruddy. "I even tried sort of...yelling in my head for Angel. In case she was close enough to hear, you know? But there's nothing, man."

Fang blinked up as the streetlights came on above them. "What about Max?"

Dylan's face went blank and he leaned back, draping an arm across the back of the bench with a shrug, the picture of nonchalance. "Haven't looked for Her."

Fang twisted his shoulders around to face Dylan, one leg drawn up on the bench. "Why the hell not? I thought you had a direction?"

Dylan turned hard eyes on Fang. "Yeah, _that_ way." He pointed. "Out of the city."

Fang matched Dylan's fuming stare. "You said she was _far._ Hell, you almost passed out, it was so far. What if you saw all the way around until you were looking in New York, huh?"

Dylan shoved the second half of his last hotdog into his mouth all at once without looking away. Fang held his stare steadily while Dylan gnashed his meal, obviously stalling. It ticked Fang off.

When Dylan's mouth was finally free, he spoke harshly, practically spitting, "Like I told you before, I don't think She's even with Hans. And whether or not She is, who's to say we're even in the right city? Just because you recognized a couple letters on a bomb and your boss is an a-hole doesn't mean this is where Hans is keeping the Flock!"

Fang stood up abruptly, towering over Dylan. The empty water bottle in his hand groaned and popped under the pressure of his fist. "If you're not Looking for Max, then why the fuck are you here?" He chucked the bottle into the trashcan behind the bench and turned from Dylan, crossing his arms and shoving his hands into his armpits as he stepped away.

"I'm not going to dignify that with a response," Dylan spat after him. He chugged the last of his water and slammed the bottle down on the bench, sending the cap flying. He was seething, red in the face, and took a few seconds before turning back to glare at Fang where he was leaning stiffly against a lamppost. "It's not like it's a cakewalk, you know. Looking for Her."

"Oh, yeah?" Fang mumbled darkly. He dug his shoulder into the chipping paint of the lamp post, ankles crossed, letting Dylan's words run in one ear and out the other.

"It fucking hurts," Dylan said, his watery voice stuck in his throat.

_What a fucking wimp,_ Fang thought bitterly.

"Looking for Her after so long. Like taking a sledgehammer to my entire fucking rib cage." Dylan coughed roughly into the soft corner of his elbow, eyes pinched shut, and sniffed wetly.

Fang glared out into the street, staring blindly into the headlights of passing cars, shoulders tense and feathers bristling. He didn't want to hear about Dylan's stupid, pre-programmed pain. He didn't want to hear him choke up over _his_ wife. He just needed to find Max so he could _breathe_ again.

Dylan's words were rough with emotion, volume increasing with each sentence. "Like dragging a fucking alcoholic into a fucking liquor store. Doesn't matter how many _fucking _sobriety chips he's earned, that shit's gonna be his kryptonite. He'll die a little inside every time he smells a _fucking _drink."

Fang turned just enough to watch Dylan heave a shuddering sigh. The man on the bench looked spent and miserable, hunched over his knees with his head in his hands. When he finally looked up, the pain in his eyes was staggering. His voice sounded broken, quieted from before, "But I'm Looking. Because She's missing, and that's important. And because, maybe, part of me still feels obligated to make it up to you." He laughed humorlessly and looked off to the side. "I'm rambling. What do you care, anyway? You don't care. Once you have the Flock back, I'll be out of here. First flight back to Switzerland. I can't keep doing this," he finished, almost to himself.

Fang's stomach flipped as his guilt from earlier reared its shaming head. He didn't want to think about Dylan's sacrifice. About how much it was costing Dylan to help. About how part of Fang was _glad_ he didn't have to find the Institute on his own. He opened his mouth to speak but couldn't find his voice. He coughed roughly and mumbled a 'thanks.' He wasn't even sure Dylan heard it at first. Wasn't sure how much he really meant it, either.

But then Dylan rolled his eyes without looking up, taking a heaving sigh that rocked his shoulders. His face fell slack as he turned his head to look down the street. _Out of the city._ He sat still as stone while his pupils contracted, smaller and smaller until it his eyes were all blue. It was only a moment before he blanched and blinked furiously, pupils expanding as he came back.

Fang paced towards him warily. He couldn't keep the question from rolling off his tongue. "Did you see her?"

"Yeah, I saw Her." Dylan looked up, distress clearly written in his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but quickly shut up, pursing his lips sourly.

Fang's fingers tapped spastically against his thigh. "And...?" he prompted.

Dylan shrugged. "She's in a smaller cell, but She's not chained up. She's got some decent bruises. But man, She's not..." He stopped himself short and shook his head. He met Fang's expectant stare but kept his face blank. "Never mind. We're here. We need to find the Flock." He sighed heavily. "Then I'm done."

_Good,_ Fang thought bitterly, guilt fading as he descended back into his foul mood. He was so done trying to work with Dylan.

Dylan looked up, eyes dull. "Can we please try something else? What if we just go down there? Into the tunnels?"

Fang considered. He didn't really want to take Dylan's advice, but then again, they'd been looking for hours and hadn't gotten anywhere. And as much as the thought of being cut off from the sky like that made his wings twitch, the sun had long set, dimming his chances of recognizing anything topside, anyway.

It was as good a plan as any.

* * *

**A/N:**

**Nola96: **Hmm, I don't mean for Dylan to be _too_ annoying. I'm trying to get to the point where you can see where Fang's coming from, but also that he's being unreasonable. The way I'm writing Dylan, he's a seriously stand-up guy. The kind of guy you want on your side. Well, that's what I'm aiming for. I'm not sure if I've slacked off about writing him as a likeable character, or if you just love Fang a lot so his annoyance is your annoyance. Which is acceptable, since I want you to be on that journey with him. =)

**Bookwriter16: **Aw, is Dylan really that annoying? Is there something he could do that would make him less annoying?

**KLoves2Read: **Um, so happy, are you kidding? See, the problem is that Marty Dayburn practically writes himself, but he doesn't read the memos about where I want the story to go so I have to manhandle him back into my mold. And thanks for picking out the visual aspects! That was one of the things I wanted to add in clearly, since he's a new character for the readers and he's playing a decent-sized roll so far in the story. Now we all know how to picture the sleazeball.

**thestupidgenius1123: **Thanks for your notes on chapter 15 (which is my chapter 14...so confusing!). Girl, you can tell me what you love over and over again and I will never tell you no. Your reviews are always encouraging, and I'll take them however I can get them! I'm actually in the process of writing the Fax reunion now. I really hope it'll be every bit as satisfying as you want it to be. There's some more story to get through first, though.

Thanks to all of you above for reviewing. Your comments mean the world. Thank you for taking the time to encourage me!


	19. Chapter 18 - Max

**Author's Note: **Dearest thanks to **KLoves2Read** for telling me how confusing the transitions between present and past (well...past and further in the past) were. I think they are better now. Enjoy!

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**CHAPTER 18 - MAX**

Max took a long sniff and dragged the back of her wrist across her nose. There was a dull, throbbing ache everywhere, kind of burny-tingly with a side of sunburn, and she was pretty sure she had a respectable shiner in addition to the bruise on her ribs.

She sniffled again, wiping at her nose, and shivered. They had moved her to a glorified closet of a cell, freezing cold, without even enough room to open her wings. There were no wall shackles, but there was an air vent way up overhead that hadn't stopped dumping sub-arctic air onto her under-clothed body since she woke. Probably longer. She should invite Jack Frost over for a tea party. Maybe convince him to let her borrow his snazzy sweatshirt.

She felt another sniffle coming on, something tickling way up in her nose. When she moved to press her wrist to her face, she saw the blood.

"Guh." She blinked stupidly, thoughts skipping for a moment, and then scowled. The stupid shock from that stupid cattle prod must've burst a blood vessel in her nose, and the frigid cell sure as hell wasn't helping. She tried to wipe some of the drying mess onto the cinderblock wall, but most of it was already crusted to the little hairs on her arm.

She choked on a whimper way in the back of her throat and curled up against the wall, head tipped back. She was glad that there were no cameras in the cell, at least that she could see. She wasn't super thrilled at the idea of anyone seeing her face crumple in self-pity as she pinched the bridge of her nose.

That was about when she noticed the little square of gauze taped to the crook of one elbow. She flexed her arm experimentally and felt the tell-tale itch of a healing needle prick. _Huh_. As far as she knew, that was the first time they'd poked her with _anything_ since she'd been here. Thinking back, they hadn't run any tests or done any observational studies that she could tell, even though she'd been here at least a week.

She'd been put in several different rooms in between escape attempts, but they hadn't _done_ anything with her yet.

She blew a laugh through her nose, snorting since her fingers were still clamped tightly over her nose to stem the flow. It was weirdly comforting, in a way. Whatever they were planning, they weren't ready for her yet.

Besides, Max didn't plan on sticking around long enough to find out.

She pinched and unpinched her fingers, testing the nosebleed. She sniffled softly, satisfied, and straightened her back with a groan. Her ribs were practically creaking from when that jerk kicked her. It had been the same nasty guy from before, the one with the gruff voice who'd chewed out Pimple Guy.

She got that her escape attempts made him pissy. Really, she did. It's not like this was her first rodeo. But he had already zapped her with the cattle prod; he didn't _have_ to kick her with his stupid steel-toed boot just because she _moved_ a little. Who the heck wears steel-toed boots in a lab, anyway?

He'd zapped her and kicked her and then she'd passed out while he was still busy chewing out the guy with the ponytail for the open window. He probably chewed out everyone he could like it was his job. Maybe it _was_ his job. Do they have job titles for that? CYO, Chief Yelling Officer.

She hadn't exactly run into Loudmouth on purpose. But after that weird vision of Fang and Mom and Dylan, she was bursting with heartache and on fire to get the heck out. None of them needed to get mixed up in whatever Hell this was. She'd had to wait until the next day, though, when Pimple Guy slunk back into her room with a depressingly meager portion of rice and beans. Clearly a slow learner, he was caught off guard when Max smiled sweetly at him through the curtain of her unwashed hair and lashed out with her legs, whipping him to the floor and delivering a swift kick to the back of his head with her bare heel.

He breathed raggedly, probably hurting but unconscious for the moment, while she lifted the key ring from his pocket with her toes. She felt ridiculously ape-ish as she contorted to unlock the first wrist cuff, then made quick work of the second one and bolted through the still-open door. She could feel a nervous sweat beading at the small of her back as she tore down the hall, hyper-aware of every noise and expecting to be caught any second. She had taken too long unlocking those stupid wrist cuffs.

There was a heavy pounding of foot falls around the next corner and Max ripped open a door on her left. The room she ducked into was a typical lab setup; a few counters at standing height, littered with state-of-the-art microscopes and Petri dishes, rows of beige filing cabinets across the wall, and an emergency shower in the far corner.

And then above the filing cabinets, glorious and beckoning, there was a long row of windows letting sunlight stream in. They were _open_ in the beautiful, beautiful weather. Max took her first bounding step, already anticipating the feel of the flimsy aluminum giving way under her palm a she vaulted up and out into the irresistible blue of the sky.

Of course, she barely made it halfway across the room.

She yelped and tripped headlong over a startled Asian guy with a ponytail as he straightened up from where he'd been crouching, rooting around in a cabinet.

The trip cost her dearly. She scrabbled on the tile to get back up, just get _out the window, damnit. _But something cold and hard jabbed her between the wings, sending her right back onto the tile. She heard a viscous crackle as an electric pulse wracked her body. She felt like the oxygen had been sucked right out of her lungs and then she was sprawled on the floor, drooling and numb and on fire all over.

Gruff McScruff lit out on the wimp with the ponytail, whose trembling hands were clasped in front of him, eyes to the floor. She could just see the angry guy out of the corner of her eye, gesturing widely toward the open window, and smirked despite herself.

_That's right, you blue-suit jerkface. You almost lost me. And now I know a way out._

That was about when Ponytail Guy noticed her, smirking on the floor behind Billy Goats Gruff. Ponytail's eyes went wide and Gruffykins turned, face alight with fury, and spat out a few words that sounded an awful lot like English. Before she could process, he delivered the swift kick to her side and cattle-prodded her again. She had cried out, jerking wildly away. Then something had snapped somewhere deep in her mind and she lost her grip on consciousness.

She wasn't completely sure how much time had passed between then and waking up just a little while ago, but judging by the dull ache of her ribs, it hadn't been more than a few hours. Maybe overnight. Long enough to have her arm pricked with who-knows-what, anyway.

Her empty stomach grumbled, and she wondered how close she was to a meal. Oh, _god, _she realized, paling. What if they'd been drugging her food all along? What if the injection was just the next phase or something?

She shivered and drew her bare knees up to her chest, folding her arms up into the little cavity between her legs and her torso and burying her nose there._ Too friggin' cold to think about it_. Her fingertips and toes were numb and she found herself wishing again for a stupid hospital gown to protect her gooseflesh skin from the bite.

She shuddered, deep and long, from her head to her toes. At first she wrote it off as the cold - she could barely keep her teeth from chattering - but she was wracked with another shiver, and then another, and again, and she felt distinctly like someone was watching her.

Her head shot up and she looked, painfully hopeful, squinting at nothing, waiting for that blurriness around the corners of her vision. Her heart picked up as she anticipated seeing Fang again, seeing him worried over her, probably thin with the stress of searching but still looking devastating, all strong and dark, the way she knew him to be.

But all she saw were the whitewashed walls of her dingy closet cell. She almost thought she saw a flash of bright blues, just for a second, but when she blinked, there was nothing, and that nothing was _so _crushing. Her jaw fell slack and her head fell forward. She shuddered again and found her eyes hot with unbidden tears.

She scoffed at herself. She knew better than to hope for things she couldn't control. But the damage was done and her heart ached for her husband, ached to be found, ached to be out of the stupid cell and with her family again.

The crying aggravated her nosebleed. A watery splatter, flooded to pink with tears, dripped onto her knee. She sniffed mightily and wiped furiously at her eyes, whimpering when she forgot about the bruising around her shiner. She couldn't _be_ here anymore. Her scowl turned onto the two-inch-tall slot in the door, the one through which they'd shoved two granola bars earlier. She didn't sign up for this, but she sure as hell didn't have to lie down and take it, either.

The next time those pasty white fingers slipped through the flap, they were going to break_._

* * *

**A/N: **Reviews make me want to dance. Sometimes, I do, a little. This time, I did a lot. Did I say I was drowning in beautiful reviews? I mean, I'm practically floating away on them, buoyed by the joy of well-written encouragement for something that I've put a lot of time and hard work into. Out of Sight is a massive story, with twists and turns and clues and an immense amount of behind-the-scenes writing and planning and development. I feel like I'm juggling almost more than I can handle sometimes, trying to move the story forward without forgetting to incorporate or acknowledge important details, but then I post a chapter and you tell me you really _like_ it, and why, and it's this massive relief of the very best kind.

**Bookwriter16**: A hint, huh? Well, I can tell you there are heavy duty tranquilizers and fire coming up. It'll all come out over the weekend, with the next three chapters. =)

**Lustrex: **You are catching things. Good. Keep your eyeballs peeled. Yes, Fang is pretty jerky at this point. There's a lot that happens in the next 3-5 chapters, though, so keep holding on and we'll get through it. As for the numb patch - naw, it's not going to be important again. It's just left over from ter Borcht and it seemed like an interesting tic to add. It gives me something to make him do with his hands without gesticulating wildly.

**thestupidgenius1123: **Thanks for your review on chapter 16, which is actually Chapter 15: What Ella Knew! I love Ella's opening line about Dylan, too, and the little awkward moment that ensues. Man, I love making it awkward. So much. As for the Fang and Dylan relationship...honestly, it's almost the whole point of the story, at this stage of the game. Yes, the events that they have to work through are interesting, but the relationship between Fang and Dylan and what they each do with that is the driving force behind a lot of the decisions I make when I'm writing it out.

**j4bb3rwocky: **I have simply PMed you. So many words. Much praise. Very thanks. Carry on.

**Nola96: **Dylan's power drains his energy, no matter who he's looking for. It's more about how far away he's trying to focus than _who_ he's trying to focus on. Although the way I figure, it's probably easier for him to 'Look' and find people who he already knows than to try to track down a stranger. The way you can pick your friend's voice out of a whole crowd of people because you recognize the way they sound. I have this whole list of rules that I made up for Dylan's Sight (and Fang's Imperceptibility) that I have them following for OoS, because it wasn't explained very well at all in the books and I wanted to actually _use_ it instead of it just being a tool that he has and then ignores.

**KLoves2Read: **Maybe it's silly, but one of my regrets for the last chapter is that I didn't bother describing the hotdogs better. Like, I want to have talked about the squishiness of the bread and the saltiness of the meat and the way it felt on the roof of Fang's mouth and the way crumbs from the bun tumbled down Dylan's shirt when he crammed his last bite in. But a) people know what hotdogs look like, so it's a liiiiittle unnecessary, and b) I was having trouble describing two men eating hotdogs on a bench in a way that didn't feel accidentally homoerotic. Strange problem to have, maybe, but it's true.


	20. Chapter 19 - In the Bowels of the City

**Author's Note: **Thank you, **KLoves2Read**, for urging me to make sure that Fang really gets a chance to let his emotions out. I hope this satisfies.

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**CHAPTER 19 – IN THE BOWELS OF THE CITY**

Fang pattered down piss-stained concrete steps and into the dim subway station, carefully avoiding the groaty steel handrail. Dylan was following close behind, a little slower as he scanned ahead with his Seeing eyes. They hopped over the deserted turn style and walked to the end of the first platform they came to.

Fang scanned the long tunnel for anyone watching, anyone who looked like they might care if the two men disappeared down the tracks, but there was only a bored kid consumed by his iPod and a guy sleeping under a bench with a bundled trash bag under his head and a newspaper balanced across his knees.

Wordlessly, he dropped down into the tunnel and started off without bothering to wait for Dylan, who followed a second later. He listened intently for sounds beyond the distant rumble of the sub cars or the muted claxon of car horns from the streets above. He kept his eyes fixed straight ahead, peering keenly through the dark, refusing to acknowledge the tons of concrete and earth above him. He didn't know whether he should blame it on the bird genes or on his less-than-stellar childhood, but being buried under the earth like this made his skin crawl so bad that every sudden noise, every far-off drip, made him want to punch through the ceiling to get out.

They had to be at least a mile in when Fang heard something new. A murmuring whisper emanated from an off-shoot tunnel just a little ways ahead, and Fang took off with renewed vigor, slipping into the new tunnel with his stomach twisting in anticipation.

Dylan's footsteps behind him scraped to a stop, faltering at the change of course and then hurrying to catch up. "Do you hear that?" he hissed.

Fang didn't bother to reply, rolling his eyes and pushing ahead when the underground dark grew muddy with a distant glow. The light grew along with the voices and soon enough the tunnel widened out into a cavern that housed what looked like a subterranean city. There were makeshift shelters made from cardboard, sheet metal, raggedy blankets , anything and everything. People were milling around in the dank chill, most of them huddled around glowing trash can fires with bright orange embers drifting lazily toward the soot-stained ceiling.

The people were different, with different scrappy hovels, but Fang was finally basking in the tickling warmth of familiarity. It could have just been the fact that they _found_ something, or the weird cocktail of stumbling onto an entire city coupled with the skin-crawling feeling of being trapped under tons of earth, but it was enough to make that little flame of hope flare up again.

Dylan came up next to him, lips parted and eyes wandering. Fang skimmed over the figures wrapped against the cold as he counted at least three...no, _four_ different offshoots, and the little flame of hope sputtered. The last time he was here, back with the Flock, they had Max's Voice telling them which way to go.

Now, he had nothing.

It was then that Dylan sucked in a harsh breath and moved quickly towards a tunnel on their far right. "This way."

Okay, maybe he didn't have nothing. He had Dylan. He would have taken Max's Voice in his head a hundred times over, killer headaches and everything, but Dylan would have to do. He hurried along behind, keeping pace easily with the tang of adrenaline filling his mouth and making his heart pound in his ears.

He was so anxious, he nearly tripped over the subway car rails that tangled across the floor. "You See something?"

"Hans. He's sitting at a computer," Dylan shot back, powering ahead.

"What about the Flock?"

Dylan took a fleeting glance over his shoulder, wincing. "Sort of?"

The pounding of Fang's feet on the concrete stuttered. Dylan turned mid-stride to urge him along, not slowing.

As soon as Fang drew up beside him, he elaborated. "I can See them. It's just...it's just weird. Everything's got this blurry awful haze to it, it's not really clear. And I don't see Her with them... Wha-uhhh..." He stumbled to a stop.

There was a fork in the tunnel.

Fang squinted past Dylan into the dark, breathing heavily from the hustle. The car rails they stood on veered off in the tunnel to the right. The opening arch on the left was smaller, with no tracks. And finally, he _remembered_ something.

"This way."

He took a few steps inside the smaller tunnel before crouching down and feeling along for the edges of the rusted grate.

"It could be," Dylan said doubtfully. "I mean, I can See the Flock, but I can't tell you how to get-"

"This is it," Fang insisted sharply, wondering what the hell Dylan's problem was that he couldn't trust him?

His fingers found an edge and he pulled, the ancient hunk of steel coming up easier than he remembered. Behind him, Dylan gagged as the ripe sewer air drifted up from the manhole. Fang ignored it. He knew it was gross. He also knew it was the right way. He led Dylan down onto the narrow ledge, covered with slippery yellow tile and a grimy coating of he-didn't-even-wanna-know. They followed the ledge deep and deeper into the tunnels and then down another left fork until they were standing in front of a paint-chipped gunmetal grey door.

Dylan turned to Fang, fingers pinched over his nose, voice sounding clogged, "I hobe this looks fabiliar?"

Fang raised an eyebrow, challenging, "You See them close by, don't you?"

Dylan looked checked out for a moment, glazed eyes drifting down the door, and finally let his nose go with a brief grimace, settling for taking shallow breaths through his open mouth. He went on, "Like I said, it's blurry, but..." His hesitance cut into Fang in the worst way. "There are only four people in there, in beds I think. I can sorta see Angel's and Gazzy's yellow hair, and Nudge is easy to pick out against white sheets..." His eyes shifted just to the left and he squinted. "There's a lanky, pale somebody who's gotta be Iggy, and then...well..." He trailed off, face falling before closing off completely. He looked like he was biting back the urge to say something, refusing to meet Fang's eye.

"What?" Fang's words were acid on his tongue. He already knew. Dylan had said it more than once already, and he was sick and tired of it.

Dylan's lips drew back apologetically. "I really don't think Max is in there, man."

Fang took a handful of angry steps down the tunnel, away from Dylan, squealing shoes echoing and amplified against the curve of the tiles. His dark wings flexed and resettled agitatedly, feathers scuffling and sighing on his back. He was so _pissed_ that Dylan wouldn't drop it. Couldn't he keep his big mouth shut?

Dylan spoke quietly, his lilting voice carrying easily through the empty tunnel, "I know you don't wanna hear it, but-"

"Then shut the FUCK up already!" Fang whirled around with sharp squeal of his sneakers, muscles pulled taught and lengthening, shoulders hitched, feathers flared threateningly. He pointed with fingers like daggers, locked rigid and protruding from his tightly-clenched fist. "She's in there. Max is there. Where the hell else would she be?" He seethed, lithe and deadly, furious and hurting, like a wounded tiger preparing to rend with teeth and claws.

Dylan's face flooded with pity, but he didn't falter. His voice stayed soft, like he was babying Fang or something, "I know what I Saw, Fang. I know it's hard to swallow, but-"

Fang snarled and slammed his palm flat against the wall with a wet slap. "How many people do you think are trying to kill us off? Huh?" He thrust his finger back at the door. "Max is _in_ there. I don't care what you think you Saw, you're wrong. Your stupid ability is complicated as hell, so you probably don't even know what the fuck you're Looking at." He threw his pointing arm in Dylan's direction, glaring darkly, and seethed, "We are _going_ to find her with the rest of the Flock. We are _going_ to take care of Gunther-Hagen. And we are _going to take them home._"

Dylan stood thoughtfully, head cocked, corner of his lips twitching towards a sympathetic frown as he watched Fang. His challenge was quiet, "Ter Borcht said Hans didn't have her."

"He _lied!_" Fang roared, his tenor growl filling the dank tunnel as he took a step forward. "Or he was wrong." He took long strides back toward Dylan, back toward the sewer entrance to the humble offices of the Institute of Higher Living, and hovered in front of him like a live wire.

"Move."

Dylan didn't move.

Fang saw red as Dylan set his jaw, staring pointedly. "You're gonna have to face this, Fang."

Fang's black eyes burned into Dylan's for a long moment. He could taste the adrenaline under his tongue he was so furious, and the whispering thought that Dylan could be right? Right about Max not being there? It was too much_._ He didn't want it. If she wasn't in there, then he was back at square one.

His fist curled at his side and he was certain in that moment that punching Dylan would feel so much nicer than succumbing to despair.

Dylan sighed and rolled some of the tension out of his shoulders. He held out his palms helplessly and Fang swore internally that if he opened his damn mouth one more time-

"It doesn't matter how much you want it, man, she's not-"

Fang roared, deep and gravelly with emotion, and swung a fierce left hook into the side of Dylan's neck. A strained, choked cough escaped Dylan's lips.

"Dude, quit _punching_ me!" he wheezed.

He turned away to cough into his fist. Fang swung again, catching his chin with the heel of his palm. Dylan's teeth met with a hollow snap, his hands flying up to protect his face with a hissed curse, but Fang wasn't nearly done. He threw punch upon punch, to the shoulder, to the gut, to the ribs, angry shouts echoing down the tunnel as he poured out everything.

Dylan staggered back defensively, throwing his wings out for balance and nearly knocking himself into the river of sewage when the bony ridge of one wing beat against the wall. Fang lunged for him, losing his footing on the slippery ledge. Dylan moved quickly, swiveling at the waist and following through from his shoulder to his curled fist where he caught Fang with a brutal uppercut to the stomach, sending him stumbling back, and gave him one last shove, landing him flat on his back with a pained grunt.

Dylan stood there, chest heaving, cheeks flushed, glaring down at the ruined man lying at his feet. "I said _quit punching me._" His voice was thin and raw as he struggled to catch his breath, wheezing pathetically, fingers ghosting over his neck where Fang's knuckles had crushed against his windpipe.

Fang sprawled across the narrow ledge, one leg tipping off, an arm thrown across his chest. He gasped raggedly, fighting to catch his breath. He coughed and opened his watery black eyes, lifting his head to glare back at Dylan. His anger was already dissipating, leaving him queasy and aching, vision swimming and lungs dry.

Punching Dylan was not as cathartic as he'd expected.

If anything, it made things worse. He'd spent his anger and now the fear of what they would find was filling the space, pouring in like water through a breached hull. He groaned and let his head fall back, just trying to breathe. He needed to regain control if he was going to be functional once they got through that door.

Dylan was watching him quietly, nostrils flaring with each breath. Eventually he rolled his eyes and turned to examine the smooth face of the door. He crouched down onto his toes, running his fingertips along the edge, and rasped out, "How the hell are we supposed to open this?"

Fang hacked another wet cough, turning his head to spit down into the sewage, and sat up. He rocked up onto his haunches, wincing internally, and shuffled over to the door in a squat. "Move."

"Gladly," Dylan muttered, scooting away.

Fang shoved a hand down his back pocket and withdrew a thin wallet. The leather was worn soft and matte at the edges, and he flipped it deftly between his shaking fingers before opening the billfold. He turned up an inside corner and fished out the small pick kit he still kept there, just in case.

He peered at the lock for half a moment before selecting three of the tiny picks, slipping one between his lips and using the other two pinched between each thumb and forefinger. Dylan watched, wary but interested, as Fang worked his way around the lock, but it wasn't like he could see anything past Fang's crooked fingers. Before long, he shuffled away to slump down with his back to the wall, arms folded and knees drawn up.

Fang added the third pin, maneuvering delicately inside the lock. While Iggy had always been the best at lock-picking, Fang wasn't a bad second. Still, this kind of lock wasn't ever a quick job, no matter who was using the pick kit. And truthfully, the calm focus required was just what Fang needed.

Dylan breathed slowly, staring at a dripping leak further up in the arch. His eyes followed a single pristine drop as it let go of the tile, falling to land in the river of city sewage below. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and turned to Look behind the wall instead.

It was a good five minutes before the deadbolt finally clicked inside the door.

Fang grinned around the two extra pick pins that had ended up between his teeth. He glanced over at Dylan and asked around them, "Gunder-'Agen?"

Dylan's denial was swift. Fang slid each pick back into its home and shoved his wallet back into his pocket.

"Awesome."

Even with Dylan's assurance that Gunther-Hagen was busy elsewhere, Fang held his breath as he gripped the edges of the door with his fingernails. The heavy industrial steel swung open with a heart-stopping groan onto a dark landing. The bright little LED light on his phone illuminated the stairs leading down into the Institute, dank and dusty and eerily silent. The heavy door swung shut behind Dylan with a screech and a jarringly deep thunk. Fang glared at him over his shoulder.

"Sorry, sorry," he whispered, shoulders hunched defensively. He glanced at the ceiling before moving gesturing with an open palm down the stairs, urging Fang to lead and giving him a wide berth. "We're good. Let's go."

Fang picked his way quietly down the steps, careful to avoid the unbarred edge. Whoever designed this death trap was an idiot. Who made narrow stairs without railings?

Dylan was mercifully quiet behind him, and before long they were padding across the blackness to another door. It opened with a rolling wave of air conditioning, just as easily as Fang remembered, to an intermediary room with lush carpeting and a second unlocked door.

Fang took a lungful of the fresh air and swung the door open, stepping into a brightly-lit lab that sent his mind reeling. His heart pounded under the onslaught of jarring flashbacks of a childhood spent under the needle and his mouth ran dry. Dylan slipped in past him, apparently and infuriatingly unaffected, and turned immediately towards the wall on their left.

Well, not exactly a wall. There was a massive pane of glass with thick floor-to-ceiling black curtains pushed to either side to reveal a second room. The sliding door was fixed open, turning the room into a continuation of the main lab. Almost a decade ago, Fang knew that there had been stacks of cages containing a bunch of mutated kids that made Max's heart bleed. Now, someone had cleared everything out to fit a set of more successful recombinant DNA life forms, eyes half-open and drugged out of their minds.

"No wonder everything Looked so trippy; They're high as kites," Dylan mused, standing stock still next to him. "How are we going to get them out of here? They're incapacitated. There's no way we can get them up the stairs ourselves, let alone through that tunnel in the dark."

Fang was only half-listening, distracted by the crushing disappointment churning in his stomach. His eyes raked across the beds on the other side of the glass, back and forth, trying desperately to see what wasn't there. There were just four of them. Four beds. With four IV stands.

Iggy, Nudge, Angel, Gazzy.

No Max.

* * *

**A/N: **Duhn duhn duuuuuuuhn...

But let's be honest, does that really surprise you guys at this point? No Max?

**Nola96: **Yes, Max could kinda feel Dylan watching her! I didn't want to make him go all the way and show himself to her again, since that drained him so badly the last time, but it's still a long trip for him. Thanks, I'm really loving the Max chapters, too, especially with the positive feedback. Thanks for cheering me on from basically the very beginning. Your reviews have been encouraging me for a long time now!

**WithoutWings: **I'm glad to have you reading along! I update about twice a week, sometimes more, so you'll get new chapters often. And I'm pretty sure almost everything is overused in the MR fandom at this point! There's probably another Fang &amp; Dylan story in the archives somewhere and I've just never come across it. And of course, Max gets kidnapped like, every other story. I'm glad this one feels new to you. =)

**thestupidgenius1123: **Welcome back to being caught up! The scene with the wings and the airport was really fun to write, I'm glad you liked that one. And lady, your predictions - you are more caught up than you realize.

**Lustrex: **Fanfiction was giving me weird trouble that night. O.o I took the chapter down and reposted it twice more because I didn't get the email saying I'd posted a new chapter and I wasn't confident that anyone else would be notified, either. Hopefully they've gotten it together by now!

**j4bb3rwocky: **Down with canon villains. "Hilariously ineffective" is an apt descriptor. As for the italic at the end, I see your point. Heavy italicization is something that I've noticed myself doing, placing emphasis on all of these words in my head, and when I remember I try to edit it out and communicate it with better dialogue tags instead but I haven't been hardcore about it. I may go back to the previous chapter and de-italicize that last word, because I agree with your reasoning.

**KLoves2Read: **I'm starting to really love my 'Max' chapters. =) It's a little hard to judge how they fit in the flow of the story when I'm continually bouncing back and forth, writing new things and editing old things and trying to make sure it all stays consistent, but the reader feedback has really helped to solidify the choice to keep the Max chapters around.

.

**Alright guys - read and review, you know what to do.**


	21. Chapter 20 - What Gunther-Hagen Did

**Author's Note: **I had to wrestle this chapter into submission. When I was starting, I had a visual idea of what I wanted to happen and solid ideas of what emotions I wanted to hit and where I wanted them to lead, but that was it. The actual dialogue felt ambiguous, like it didn't matter what was said as long as it hit the right notes, and that made putting this together quite a challenge.

Thanks as always to **KLoves2Read,** especially because of the extra work she did with me toward getting this chapter together.

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**CHAPTER 20 - WHAT GUNTHER-HAGEN DID**

Fang looked down the row of beds, chest tightening under the weight of disappointment. The rest of the Flock was here, lying stiffly on crinkly sheets, elevated on a row of spindly-wheeled gurneys. Angel looked so small and pale down at the far end of the row, and next to her Nudge was ashen and so, so still. Gazzy and Iggy were closest to Fang, tall enough that their feet dangled limply off the ends of the hospital beds.

And for several seconds, he felt paralyzed. It was only _almost _his whole family.

Dylan cleared his throat softly. Fang set his jaw with a mighty sniff and strode towards Iggy's bed. Rescue the Flock. Then they could find Max together. It was fine. Dylan would see that she was just on another floor or something. She had to be. He couldn't think about the alternative. He reached up to unhook the chemical drip that hung over Iggy like some bloated vulture but Dylan's warning stopped him in his tracks.

"Fang...Fang, dude, don't. It's a double-drip, and we don't even know what they're on yet." Dylan pulled one of the IV bag stands towards him, scanning the label on the smaller of two bags. His face drew tight and he looked down at Nudge. Her eyelids were half open, glassy eyes staring listlessly down her nose at her lightly parted lips. Her chest rose and fell with even breaths and the little red glow of the heart monitor that was clamped on her ring finger fluxed steadily.

Dylan shook his head, thoughts somewhere far away, before looking at Fang wearily. "It's C-twelve-H-fourteen-N-two." Fang stared blankly and Dylan grinned in a way that did nothing to reassure him. "Dormosedan. It's marketed as a horse sedative. Puts you to sleep and makes everything numb. Hans used it on me a couple of times, once when I was new and then again when I was first trying to leave him. Even with my metabolism, it always took two days to shake it off."

"Any chance you're exaggerating?" Fang's jaw tightened and he eyed his sleeping Flock again. Maybe they could unhook the drug and go find Max while they all woke up. Finding Max couldn't take too long now that they were in the building, and it would give the Flock time to come back to consciousness.

Dylan squinted up at the drip bag again, fingering the medicated pouch before poking at the plastic joint that connected everything. "They won't wake up quick enough to leave without some outside help. It always took me a couple of hours to be fully lucid, and then I still couldn't walk straight for a day." Ignorant of Fang's frustration, he twisted a plastic nut and examined the joint again before standing back, satisfied. "You can close off the valve for the drug. Just make sure you leave the saline drip on. It'll help flush their systems some."

"Great. Then we'll go find Max."

Dylan sighed wearily. "Fang-"

"_Then we'll find Max." _His pause was threatening, the anger rolling from his tense shoulders. He was just waiting for Dylan to give him a reason to take another swing, to have an excuse to finish the fight from earlier, but Dylan wisely shut up. Fang nodded decisively and reached for Iggy's drip, examining the frosted plastic t-joint. The valve system was simple enough, just a quick twist and then it was relegated to a regular old saline drip.

"Sure," Dylan sighed, moving around Nudge's bed to reach Angel with a glance above. "I'll just keep an eye on - oh, crap!"

Fang froze.

"No no no no no no," Dylan muttered, head tilted back as he turned underneath the ceiling. "I lost him, hold on."

Fang moved quickly to Gazzy's drip stand, fumbling with the plastic valve.

Dylan hissed, "Hide! He's about to-"

Just as Fang flickered out, a pair of sliding doors in the main lab hissed and Doctor Hans Gunther-Hagen stepped in. His nose was buried in a brown clipboard stuffed with uneven sheets of paper, all curled edges and coffee stains. He was absently clicking his pen with his thumb, moving towards the nearest desk where he stopped abruptly, eyes snapping up to Dylan.

"Oh! Oh, gracious..." He removed his spectacles from his bulbous nose with a trembling hand and wiped them hurriedly on the edge of his button-up shirt. He leaned forward to peer through the glass wall at Dylan with squinting eyes that blew wide as a jubilant smile spread across his pudgy face. "Oh, my boy! My boy, you're here! You've escaped that madman! You've come back to me!" The clipboard clattered across the desk top and Gunther-Hagen lurched towards Dylan, arms already opening for an embrace.

"Stop!" Dylan's command was booming, the intensity halting the doctor in his tracks. Fang instinctively froze where he stood, still several paces away from Angel's IV drip, and watched.

The tense silence stretched on as Gunther-Hagen's face contorted with emotion, wild and passionate and overwhelmingly confused. He shook his head as if coming out of a trance and took another step forward, halting again when Dylan raised his flat palm.

"But you are here_._ You've finally chosen to return to me. I do not understand."

Dylan gestured to the sleeping Flock behind him. "Let them go, Hans. I'm safe. You don't need them for ransom anymore." His voice was imploring, dripping with his typical honey-sweet charisma as he walked slowly along the glass wall to stand in the opening. Gunther-Hagen relaxed a little, seemingly mollified now that he wasn't separated from Dylan by glass. Dylan was also now positioned as a protective barrier between the madman and his captives. Fang let loose a breath he didn't know he was holding.

"Let them go."

Hans looked dazed, nodding twice before shaking his head fervently. "No, don't you see? I'm doing this for you. I'm going to get Max for you!"

Fang's head snapped up at the mention of his wife, waiting to hear his boss' name on Gunther-Hagen's lips, but it never came.

Dylan tensed, speaking urgently, "Where is she?"

"I don't have her." Gunther-Hagen sounded truly apologetic, breaking Fang's train of thought and sending it reeling. "Not yet. But I will, I swear it. You'll have her before long and then-"

"You can't make her love me, Hans." Dylan screwed his eyes shut, speaking with trembling conviction, "She was never mine, and she never will be."

Gunther-Hagen's face lit up as if he had _the best_ secret. "Have some faith, Dylan. I have a plan, and when it comes to fruition, you won't have any reason to stay away!" He clasped his palms earnestly, smiling like a loon as he divulged his plan. "It won't be long before she comes to rescue her Flock. I will take a microscopic tissue sample; a simple procedure. You'll have your very own Max within months!"

Fang's stomach lurched, fingers trembling as he fiddled with the IV drip in front of him, double-checking to make sure he'd closed off the right valve. Gunther-Hagen didn't have Max. How did he not have Max? Hadn't Marty-

"You're a sick man, Hans." Dylan's face screwed up, his tortured eyes glistening. "You can't just make people like...like you're mixing a milkshake."

Gunther-Hagen looked at him, wide eyed. "You're not making any sense. You have always wanted Max. I made you that way_._"

Dylan trembled bodily, face flushing, muscles rippling as his firsts curled at his sides. When he spoke, the devastating conviction swelled to fill the room, "I am more than what you made me to be."

The doctor laughed, wild and deranged, and slipped his hands into his pockets. "You are exactly what I made you to be, my boy. You are the perfect specimen! I wrote your very DNA, from the span of your wings to the desires of your heart. You cannot change those things."

Dylan's hair fell across his forehead as he stared down at his clenched fist, lips drawn down into a severe scowl. When he looked up again, his eyes were dark and menacing. "I am not bound to you."

Gunther-Hagen's face twisted with rage. "You fool!" He slammed his closed fist down on the desk, making the drawers rattle. "You owe everything to me! You wouldn't even be alive if I hadn't rescued your DNA from the morgue, cultivated you in my lab, made plans for you and set you up for success."

"I don't _need_ you to be _me_!" Dylan cried out. Fang found himself trembling at the doctor's words, his old hatred for the scientists who shaped his body and tried to control his life boiling in his gut.

"Success which you have squandered like a petulant child!" Gunther-Hagen pressed on, completely enraged and turning a shocking shade of purple. He pointed wildly at the Flock. "Success that was stolen from you by that gaggle of beguiling geese! Ruined by Fang's short-sighted selfishness! Ravaged by Maximum's insufferable attitude!" His face twisted in anguish and he turned to hunch over the desk.

"And here you are. Helping them," he spat out, turning his glare on Dylan, eyes hardened with spite. "You are no longer a son of mine. My son is dead!"

Fang flinched at the low blow. He felt the rising pain of being unwanted, dull and despairing, and something the Flock was never a stranger to.

"I am not your son!" Dylan cried and beat his fist on the glass by his head, sending thunderous ripples along the wall. "I was never your son!"

Gunther-Hagen's expression became wistful, tightening at the corners of his eyes. "You could have had her, you know. You were so close, if only you had reached out to take it. You would have been so good for her. So much better than Fang ever was." The wistful look vanished, covered by a boiling anger as his fingers dug into the paper on his clipboard. "He turned her into his bitch and didn't think twice about whether he deserved to have any of it."

Rage surged, popped, coursed through Fang. He whipped around, bristling wings unfolding fiercely. He stumbled when the ridge of one wing connected with Angel's IV stand, sending it swinging towards the floor in a terrifying arc. He dove to catch it.

The movement of the stand caught Gunther-Hagen's crazed eye. He cocked his head in puzzlement, staring at the floating metal pole. It hovered, suspended above the floor at an impossible angle.

Fang froze, his heart in his mouth, his hold on his Imperceptibility tenuous. His palms felt sweaty against the cold metal. Dylan's eyes, still fixed upon Gunther-Hagen, were wide with horror.

The moment the doctor's epiphany struck, the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees.

"You!" Gunther-Hagen's crazed yell ricocheted off the massive glass pane, voice distorted with madness. He laughed, a soft chuckle at first, growing into a chortling guffaw and then twisting into a snicker. "You have eluded me across oceans, and now you are here of your own volition?"

Fang seethed, stuttering back into visibility and letting the IV stand fall from where he was crouched. "I thought you had Max!"

Gunther-Hagen rolled his eyes and turned on Dylan, lips pursed, shaking his head. "Just when I thought that you could sink no lower. How did he convince you to work with him? Hmm? What lies did he fill your head with? How stupid can you get?" He slammed his flat palm on the desk and turned back to Fang. "And you...You are the worst coward of all, hiding like a child behind your cloak."

"And you've been using Marty to do your dirty work!" Fang lurched to his feet, skin hot with anger. He strode with wide steps and swinging arms toward the opening in the glass where Dylan still stood on guard.

The doctor hesitated, brows rippling in confusion. "I-I'm sorry, who?"

"My boss," Fang snarled, shoving past Dylan and stepping into the main room. "You've been working with Martin Dayburn to-"

"Lies!" the doctor bellowed, indignant, face twisting with passion. "I've done it all myself! I don't need any help, never needed any help, to take care of my child! This is all my work_, _and duplicating Maximum will be my magnum opus!"

"Tell me where the fuck she is!" It was the only thing he could think, spilling harshly through his lips as he rushed toward Gunther-Hagen with curling fists.

The doctor's blazing eyes locked on his, windows into the depths of hell framed by sparse-plucked lashes and bloodshot whites that made Fang falter. He stopped less than halfway across the room, frozen like a frightened opossum, still separated from the doctor by a few desks and almost twenty feet of carpeting.

"You... You diseased pigeon! You are unfit for your existence!" Gunther-Hagen turned, muttering, to the tall acid cabinet behind him, wrenching the door open and revealing shelves of ammunition, grenades, oil and lighter fluid. The insides of the doors were lined with hooks cradling an impressive assortment of weapons, both manual and automatic.

Dylan just about choked. "Hans, what is this?"

Gunther-Hagen ignored him, yanking a long, narrow rod from the middle of the rack and muttering about bones and burning and credit where credit was due. He cried out in frustration when the long hose at the butt sent grenades tumbling to the floor. There was a metallic screech as he tried to pull a small gas tank out by tugging on the hose, but there was too much in the way. He gave up with a growl and turned back to Fang, clutching the barrel of the flamethrower to his chest.

Dylan shook his head, wide-eyed, and repeated shakily, "Hans, what are you doing?"

The doctor turned to Dylan with a sickening grin, teeth flashing obscenely. "I'm securing your future!"

There was a metallic click as he switched the gun to standby mode. Blue flames glowed inside of the nozzle at the end. Fang could smell the acrid stench of the propane, even yards away.

Then Gunther-Hagen depressed the trigger, gun pointed to the vaulted concrete ceiling above. A roaring plume of flame belched from the lit end, colliding with one of the industrial fluorescents and rolling across the ceiling like a luminescent thunderhead. The light shattered. A sprinkler turned on. The very oxygen was sucked out of the room.

That was when Fang knew he was going to die.

* * *

**A/N: **

**little redhead: **You're in luck, you only had to wait a day. Thanks for the review!

**WithoutWings: **Dylan's Sight has been great fun to write. There's so little material in the books to use, it really opens up doors. There are a few more weird Flock abilities yet to be incorporated, but none of them hold the narrative weight that Dylan's Sight does.

**Nola96: **Was the fight not fantastic? I loved writing that thing. In the first version, it was a pretty quick I-punch-You-punch moment, but KLoves2Read really pushed me to make more out of it and I love the end result. I'm glad you enjoyed Fang's breakdown.

**KLoves2Read: **Dylan not reading as a pushover is good. He's unfailingly nice, good, kind, etc, but he's still a strong guy and worthy of respect. He's giving Fang a LOT of grace because of the whole missing-wife business, but he's not meant to be a welcome mat or anything. The brawl gave him a chance to be firm.

**thestupidgenius1123: **I had to go back to the book more than once to make sure I got the instructions down to the IHL correct. x.x I didn't remember at all that they had to go down into the sewer to get there, and that the steps into it led down, or any of the other bits. So it's book-accurate, as much as it could be. Besides writing this relationship between Fang and Dylan, playing with weird canon elements and making them useful or functional has been one of my favorite things.

**Lustrex: **Imagery is fun. Gross imagery is, okay, gross, but also easy to get really descriptive with and pack a visceral punch for the reader. I like doing that. =) And maybe it's my fault for having such a complicated story, but GH didn't recruit ter Borcht - ter Borcht was blackmailing GH. Dear old Borchty, who was Switzerland-bound post-Itex, nabbed Dylan from one of his supply runs and was using him as leverage to get Gunther-Hagen to collect and deliver the Flock to ter Borcht's kennel-slash-evil torture lab in Switzerland so he could kill them all and exact revenge. Which...trying to fit it in one sentence, it's definitely kind of convoluted. I don't know what that does for the theories your brain is spinning.

**Question: ****Fang's pretty sure he's gonna die. What do _you_ think will happen? What do you want to happen?**


	22. Chapter 21 - Licking Wounds

**Author's Note: **Thank you to my beta reader, **KLoves2Read,** for reminding me that Fang should probably think about the Flock more than not-at-all when there's a crazy man with a flamethrower in the same room.

* * *

**CHAPTER 21 - LICKING WOUNDS**

He couldn't speak.

Couldn't swallow.

Couldn't think.

Couldn't see anything but the shimmering nozzle of the flamethrower. The heat from the gun was enough that the edge of the nearby desk was losing its sharp edge, dipping into a sagging pocket and unfurling in molten drips down the side.

"Hans, what are you doing?" Dylan asked from behind Fang, incredulous. He stood frozen in the doorway to the glass lab as they watched Gunther-Hagen unravel right before their eyes.

The madman took a rattling breath and spoke, low and ominous, his dilated eyes pinning Fang where he stood in the middle of the room, "I cannot stand by while you live a stolen life." His mouth stretched into a sickening grimace. He pivoted the flamethrower on his hip, swinging it around to the front and depressing the trigger. It sputtered twice, gave a great roar, and vomited rolling flames in a staggering arc all the way across the room to singe the opposing wall.

Dylan screamed at him to stop, a great bellowing cry that ricocheted off the glass wall. It couldn't compete with the all-consuming roar of the flames as they swept across the lab, scorching microscopes and starting little paper fires.

Fang took a reflexive step back. His heel caught on an extension cord, landing him flat on his ass. He scrabbled backwards with clumsy limbs until his wings pressed up against the glass wall. The glass wall that separated his incapacitated family from the madman before him.

Gunther-Hagen pumped the trigger twice, a fizzling hiss from the gas filling the space between the growling of the fire. Fang had half a second of unbridled terror in which he imagined the glass room behind him flooded with orange and screams. But then the nozzle shifted lower, aimed more precisely. Fang's thoughts screeched to a halt as the weapon's blue-glow fluxed to brilliant orange.

It was pointed right at his face.

Sudden, searing heat consumed Fang's left hand. His thoughts with white-hot, excruciating pain and closing like a fist around his throat. He bucked back against the glass, waiting for the flames to consume him.

And then there was Dylan. He bounded past with coiled legs and flapping wings. He ran right into the pillar of fire and threw himself bodily upon Gunther-Hagen, flooding the room with the acrid stench of charred flesh. Strangled cries echoed as Dylan fought, throwing fist and foot even as his shirt began to melt off his body.

Fang watched, fixed in place as if his burned hand had melted him to the floor. A single thought pushed its way through the barrier of his pain.

_Someone was going to die._ _He couldn't let it be Dylan_.

He shook out of his shock and rocketed to his feet. He ignored the lightning throb of his branded wrist to rush into the fight.

The still-spewing flamethrower had tumbled to the floor and the ancient carpeting had caught spectacularly. The smoke was instantaneous, thick and black and billowing, and Gunther-Hagen's cries turned to anguished screams. The flames were melting plastic and dancing up the sides of a metal file cabinet. Gunther-Hagen's lab coat had kindled, too, and the hems of his trousers, flames licking up his limbs as he writhed.

Fang buried his nose in the crook of his elbow, eyes watering. He made a grab for Dylan, wrenching him away from his unmoving punching bag, and hauled him away. He choked furiously on smoke as he dragged Dylan out of reach of the fire, sweltering heat making him sweat.

Dylan hacked wetly, lungs filling with smoke. He pushed at Fang and turned to hack until black spit dribbled down his lips. "Everything's burning," he wheezed.

Fang dropped Dylan's sweat-soaked shoulders and ran, stumbling, over to the red cylinder that hung against the wall next to the acid cabinet. He turned the nozzle onto the blaze, pulled the pin, and sprayed the foam thickly over the flames.

And just like that, it was over.

His heart was in his throat and on the surface of his burned skin. The spent fire extinguisher dropped from his hand with a hollow clang. Shaking, he stumbled backwards until his ass connected with the edge of a desk and he just stood there, leaning and gripping and staring unseeingly at the ceiling while he tried to remember how to breathe.

His nose was burning with the meaty stench of Gunther-Hagen's charred corpse, now eerily still under layers of ash and foam. Fang could hear the quiet groans of the Flock as they started to stir and the soft patter of the single functioning fire sprinkler soaking an unscathed patch of carpet. There was a muffled dial tone and then Dylan spoke urgently, requesting emergency services. Fang's thumb rubbed through his jeans along the numb patch on top of his thigh and he blinked until he could make out a spindly crack in the smoke-stained concrete above him.

_Report,_ Max's memory whispered to him. He let his eyes fall shut as the aches and pains swam into focus. He still had a knot deep in his gut from where Dylan had punched him outside. His tailbone was bruised, his feet ached, and his eyes burned. His left hand was trembling, the flesh on the top of his wrist bubbling and enflamed where the flamethrower had gotten him. But he'd been saved. Dylan had run headfirst into it.

Fang turned his head and saw him, sitting close by on a metal stool next to a lab table where Fang's cell phone lay face down. His shirt was in tatters and he was trembling, face white as a sheet, eyes glassy and red-rimmed. Fang was frozen, wanting to say something but not knowing what._ Thanks for saving me? I'm glad you're not dead? The Flock is alive because of you?_ Nothing felt adequate.

Dylan's head lolled between his shoulders, falling slack with a groan, and he slowly peeled off his charred t-shirt with shaking hands to reveal a swath of crispy, blackened flesh across his chest and down one forearm. Fang's stomach flipped.

And then Dylan stuck his tongue out flat, lifted his arm to his mouth, and licked gingerly across the burn. Fang watched with morbid fascination as the pulpy flesh reformed, losing the sickly shine, turning new and pink and smooth as fresh skin covered over the bubbling wound. Dylan caught him watching and shot him a pained grin. "I'm Gunther-Hagens' freak through and through, aren't I?"

"That's disgusting." Fang shook his head disbelievingly as Dylan worked his jaw before licking his palm wetly and twisting, pressing the saliva onto the burn across his ribs. He sucked in a harsh breath and let it out shakily as he licked his palm again to lower it to his burnt flesh.

"Yeah, well...gotta do it."

Fang hummed quietly in response, still wordless and momentarily stunned by Dylan's self-healing ability. He looked away, pressing his uninjured palm against his face and then dragging it through his hair.

What the hell was supposed to come next?

The Flock seemed mostly okay, considering they had been shielded from the worst of Gunther-Hagen's flame fest by the glass divider. But they were pumped full of drugs and, according to Dylan, out of commission for at least two days. Better than being experimental subjects again, or turned over to ter Borcht as ransom, but still, it should never have happened.

Fang's stomach churned with guilt. How in the hell had he convinced himself that Nudge and the kids would be safe when everyone else was missing? What was his problem?

And Max...Max was still missing. And Marty wasn't involved. And Gunther-Hagen was dead, but not before he'd torn Dylan down ruthlessly, throwing verbal punches and exploiting every weakness and probably making him feel like dirt.

Fang cringed. Dylan was probably still feeling _Fang's_ punches from earlier. From when he tried to convince him that Max wasn't here. Which, it turned out, was true.

Fang was sick and tired of humble pie.

He made his slow way over to Dylan, stopping before him and waiting until the blonde man looked up from licking his wounds.

"Hey." Fang's gaze drifted over the burn that Dylan had taken in his place, too morbid to ignore. "Listen, what you did. I just-" He shifted on his heels. "I was good as dead." He winced slightly at the hollow sound of his own words, painfully inadequate as they were.

Dylan gave him a faltering smile, eyes dull with pain. "No problem, man. You do what you have to do, you know?"

Fang shook his head firmly. "You didn't have to. I've been a complete asshole and you still did it. You could have left a long time ago and I wouldn't have blamed you. Hell, I...I wanted you to." His eyes fell shut under the weight of everything. He spoke quietly, hoping Dylan could hear the sincerity in his apology. "'M'sorry."

Dylan watched him carefully, eventually shrugging and turning back to lick his palm. "S'alright."

Fang nodded slowly and lowered himself to the floor, leaning against the table at Dylan's feet. The sprinkler had finally shut off and the only sound was the wet slap of Dylan's tongue as he rewet his palm again and again.

After a minute and a few false starts, Fang whispered, "I really thought she'd be here." He shifted so the corner of the table leg pressed between his wings, putting comforting pressure between his shoulder blades and pressing rigidly against a taught knot of muscle buried there.

"I know, man. I know." Dylan worked on his wound from above. A map of fresh pink skin stretched across his ribs where he had already self-healed, unnaturally bright next to the gruesome char further down his side. "I wish I was wrong."

Fang just sighed, drawing up his knees and resting his elbows on the bony caps, hands hanging limply in front of him. He stared listlessly at the restless Flock; watched Nudge's hand twitch across her belly, watched Angel's pale face scrunch up and relax again. "I don't even have the Flock to help look," he mumbled, feeling the truth of his loneliness settle like a boulder in his gut. His wife was still missing, the Flock was virtually comatose, and Dylan had been clear that he was leaving. He had no one.

Dylan pulled one arm over his head experimentally, stretching out his new skin, before turning to survey the hostages. "Give them a couple of days. They'll be alright."

"I don't have a couple of days." Fang closed his eyes and hung his head, taking a shuddering breath. "My only other lead was Marty. I thought, for sure, because of New York...but Gunther-Hagen shut that down." He swallowed, tongue dry. "I don't know where she is, or who's got her, or what they're doing to her..." His voice trailed off and he whispered weakly, his voice thin and cracked, "I just thought she'd be here."

It was the most vulnerable he'd let himself be in front of Dylan, but now it didn't bug him. Not anymore. Not like he had enough pride left to care, anyway. To his credit, though, Dylan didn't press. Didn't shove an 'I told you so' in his face. He just grabbed his crispy shirt and slid off the stool to sit on the ground next to him, a good few inches between them but close enough that Fang could feel him right there. Dylan watched him carefully for a minute, running his tongue over his teeth, before speaking.

"Listen. We'll get the Flock to a hospital to finish detoxing, and we'll figure out where to go from there. The ambulance should be here soon. We've got this." 

Fang barely nodded, head still hanging, his voice rough, "Yeah. Okay."

Dylan pursed his lips compassionately and clapped Fang on the shoulder. "Okay." He threaded his arms through the remains of his t-shirt and pulled it back over his head.

They waited for the police to show up.

And Fang wondered if he had any chance at all of convincing Dylan to stay.

* * *

**A/N: **Finally, something pushes Fang over an edge. A large part of my goal with this trilogy of chapters was to wrestle Fang &amp; Dylan's relationship into something completely different. Fang's anger at Dylan came to a head in the sewer tunnel, then he watched G-H tear Dylan down last chapter, and in this one, Fang eats the entire humble pie and finally cops to what an asshole he's been. I've been so nervous about posting these chapters, because this is a pivotal point in the story. Yes, it's about finding Max, but it's also about Fang &amp; Dylan. Moreso even than finding Max. So this change of heart for Fang is a big deal.

Now, that said...

I'm nervous but I'll ask anyway; **what did you think? **After the cliffhanger last chapter, did this one satisfy? Were you surprised at how it went down? Do you feel anything about Gunther-Hagen being killed off? And obviously Fang still has some work to do with Dylan before Dylan ditches him; do you have any expectations for what that looks like?

**Nola96: **I'm so glad that you loved Gunther-Hagen's insanity! That was something I worked hard at, making him just off-kilter enough for it to be believable without letting it be an excuse for sloppy writing. And Max is next. Now they have the Flock safe and sound, it's time to go get Max.

**Bookwriter16: **Aw, you know I can't kill Fang. Not when there's so much more story to tell!

**WithoutWings: **Normally, I'd PM you, since it sounds like you might have some deeper constructive crit up your sleeve, but I can't, so I'm asking you here. I'd love to hear more about what was confusing to you at the end of the last chapter, if you're able to pinpoint it. As I mentioned in the A/N, I had a lot of trouble piecing the chapter together, and ending up with hard-to-follow scenes was one of the problems I worked hard at. Was there a particular phrase or line that threw you off? Was it an issue of following the action visually, or more of figuring out what G-H or Fang or Dylan was trying to communicate? If you're able to break down your comment a little, I'd be super-grateful, since I want to learn! That said, yes, the flamethrower is over-the-top, but that part was on purpose. Gunther-Hagen's come completely unscrewed, and a flamethrower seemed like an appropriate weapon (versus a gun or a syringe or, I don't know, a baseball bat). There's definitely more to come for F&amp;D's relationship; I'm hoping I can carry it honestly with my words and make it something worth reading.

**kittymycat: **Better late than never. I'm always glad to hear someone's been reading along and enjoying! You were right on the ball as far as wanting a friendly resolution for Fang &amp; Dylan. Obviously, there's more work to be done between them, but you've held on long enough to see Fang apologize. I hope you stick around for more, and thanks for reviewing!

**Lustrex: **I'm curious, what sorts of things would have lent to a 'gonna kill someone off' kind of feel? I'm not sure what that means and now I'm curious! Does having killed G-H off count, since he's not a main player besides these three chapters? As for Fang stopping in his tracks – hmm, I might have gotten a little bit lazy there. I was trying to convey something in G-H's stare being so unsettling that it stopped Fang short. Fang saw how unhinged G-H really was and his instincts kicked in, telling him he'd be better off staying far, far away. That was what I _meant_ to accomplish. Whether or not I did that, well...there's always something to be done better. =)

**J4bb3rwocky: **I'll be honest, I thought of you when I wrote Fang's last line in the last chapter. Because I know how much you'd love Fang to DIAF. *heart hands* That said, I've had everything you've said to me in mind as I edited and re-edited this chapter, too. Because all of a sudden, Fang's anger gets stripped away and he has to face the consequences of the shit he's done in his haste to act throughout the story; everything looks ugly and a lot of it's his fault, at least in part. More of the consequences will unravel in the next few chapters, but this is the 'eureka moment' for him. Or it's supposed to be. I've been so nervous about this chapter, trying to handle such a crazy emotional switch with finesse, and I'm not very confident I've done it as well as I could. So, lay it on me, sir. I'm ready. *anticipatory cringe* And no, I don't think G-H was this unhinged in canon. I mean, he was still completely whack-a-doodle, but besides killing Fang (geez, he does that a lot, doesn't he?), he was mostly-harmless from what we saw. Those eight years really did a number on him.


	23. Chapter 22 - Red Tape

**Author's Note: **Thanks as always to **KLoves2Read** for being at my beta-reading beck and call. You are always lovely. I wrote half this chapter after you beta-read it. You have never seen most of this before. Uh...surprise?

After five years at where I live, I've finally done it. I am Queen of the world. I am Pandora with her box. I am a warrior princess, ready to kick some ass.

That's right. I now have a library card.

Though I wouldn't recommend last-minute editing after plowing through a Palahniuk novel. I had to stop myself from being just ridiculous.

* * *

**CHAPTER 22 – RED TAPE**

When New York's finest showed up, Fang let Dylan handle the details. His thoughts felt sluggish and he just needed a few more minutes, please, before he had to climb into a police car to give a statement about what had just happened. Then he'd fill out the paperwork for the Flock at North Shore Hospital where they'd stay just until they were well enough to fly themselves home. And somewhere in there, he would figure out where to look for Max.****

Until then, he just needed a few more minutes to pull himself together. Just a few minutes to remind himself how to breathe. Just a few minutes to scrape up the shattered pieces of his hope where they'd spilled across the floor. For the first time, he was glad Dylan was the one there with him. It made it all the more bitter to remember that Dylan didn't want to stay.

The Flock was wheeled out on Gunther-Hagen's gurney beds and loaded, one by one, into an industrial elevator that serviced the unmarked basement levels of the unassuming office building above. After Angel disappeared with a whoosh of stainless steel doors, Dylan made his way back over to Fang with a tight-lipped smile and two men in blue.

One of the officers cleared his throat and looked down at Fang. "Let's go, boys. We don't have you cuff you, but we've got some paperwork to do."

Fang nodded and stood up on shaky legs, biting his tongue when his blistering wrist grazed the seat of the stool.

Dylan eyed the way Fang held his arm protectively and gripped his shoulder. "They won't keep us too long. They said they've been looking for Hans for years, and that it's a pretty cut-and-dry case for self-defense. We'll be at the hospital soon enough and they'll fix you up."

"Yup," Fang grunted and followed Dylan out of the lab towards the elevator shaft, leaving behind a handful of officers who were looking distastefully at Gunther-Hagen's blackened corpse.

It was only a few blocks to the precinct. Fang sat next to Dylan on cracking vinyl seats in the back of the police cruiser, his wrist throbbing more and more painfully until he could feel every turn, every stop, every damn pothole in the pads of his fingers. It had swollen impressively by the time they were led through the doors and the officer behind the desk visibly recoiled when he saw it.

"You guys can't keep bringing 'em here when they need a doctor first, Ted. We're not equipped and you know it."

The officer at Fang's shoulder didn't bother to look. "We're only having them record statements, Eric. They'll be in and out in half an hour. Tops."

"This about the Gunther-Hagen tip-off, isn't it?" Eric's eyes flashed knowingly and he pushed the sign-in sheet towards Dylan who scrawled his name hurriedly and nudged the clipboard over to Fang. "I can't believe you finally have a lead. Empty your pockets, boys."

"The lead is that the guy's dead."

"Oh." Eric shut up after that, sweeping Fang's phone and other things into a plastic baggy and waving them through.

The men were taken into different rooms. Fang was given a thin gel ice pack for his wrist and made to sit in a flimsy aluminum chair in front of an interviewer and a camera from the 90's. He was instructed to explain what had happened as clearly as he could. The interviewer was especially interested in how Fang knew where to find the Institute's entrance, and Fang answered the follow-up questions as best as he could manage with his mind constantly going back to the Flock and to Max and to the raging pain on his wrist.

When he was done, he stood up shakily, light-headed from pain and depleted adrenaline. He clutched the flimsy icepack tightly. Dylan was already finished and waiting by the door, Fang's belongings in hand.

"Officer Simmons is going to take us to the hospital," Dylan said, motioning towards a tall man with an impressive mustache. He took a glance at Fang's wrist, face twisting in concern. "We'll get you help and check on the Flock."

Fang just nodded, on autopilot as he followed the men to the police cruiser waiting at the curb, mentally looking ahead to paperwork and saying goodbye to Dylan.

They arrived to an eerily quiet hospital at four in the morning. Fang thumbed through the stack of pink and yellow forms on the clipboard, the thin sheets snagging on the jagged edges of his dry skin. Dylan was camped out on a matching chair with a torn up copy of _Reader's Digest _curled in one hand. Between them was a cheap coffee table littered with wrinkled copies of _Home &amp; Garden_, last month's _National Geographic_, and half of a coloring page from _Highlights for Kids_. The nurse behind the desk had her cheek glued to her palm. Fang could see her game of solitaire reflected in her glasses.

He curled his fingers tightly around his bandaged thumb and then let them fall limp. He wrapped and relaxed and winced at the way the bulky gauze around his wrist tightened against his burning skin. Still, he preferred the pressure to the heat that burned all the way down to the marrow. It had been a long time since he'd had a burn that bad and he couldn't really remember how long it should take to heal, but the resident on duty had said three weeks without a skin graft so he was hoping for one.

He'd already scrawled his way through three sets of admittance forms and was starting on Angel's when his cell phone buzzed on the edge of the table. Dylan glanced up from his magazine, eyes flitting between Fang and the phone.

"Aren't you going to get that?"

Fang leaned forward to read the caller ID. "Val?" He looked up at Dylan. "It's Val." He grabbed up the phone, letting the clipboard tilt across one knee and swiping 'Accept.' He leaned back with a sigh, letting his eyes fall shut. "Hey."

"Fang? Fang, thank God!" Her breaths were coming short and fast, her words tinged with an edge of hysteria. "Where are you?"

"Hospital."

She sucked in a harsh breath and her voice raised several pitches. "What?"

Fang sat up, rubbing his temple gingerly with his wrapped hand. "With the Flock. We found the Flock, Val."

"Most of them," Dylan added from across the room. Fang scowled.

"And you and Dylan?"

"We're fine. Everyone here is fine."

There was a long, tremulous sigh and a soft wheeze from a chair being sat upon. "Oh my god. Oh my god, oh my god. Okay. Okay, we're okay." She laughed lightly, thin and strained, "Ah, I can finally breathe again."

"Val, what happened?" 

"It doesn't matter. We're okay. How's Max doing?" 

Fang shifted uncomfortably. "She wasn't there."

It was silent for a long moment. Dylan's watchful eyes were trained on Fang's bowed head.

"But you said... You said you were with the Flock. You said you were at the hospital with the Flock. Is Max not part of her own Flock now? You think can have the Flock without Max? What-" 

"She wasn't there." The 'there' stuck in his throat like a sliver of eggshell. The hand holding the phone fell limp at the wrist, the screen flashing furiously as it dragged down the skin of his cheek, and then Dylan was standing at his shoulder to take over.

"Val, it's Dylan. Did something happen?"

Fang sat up slowly, slouching but not hunched, still but breathing deeply, head titled but not limp. His eyes were open but he couldn't see anything past the shimmering blur of the middle distance. Dylan's hummed responses grew shorter and deeper and when he finally spoke, Fang looked to him wearily. 

"Okay, we'll be there as soon as we can. Yes, of course. How long...? Uh, hopefully before noon, if we can book a flight." He paused for a tick. "In New York. Yeah. Yeah, I know." He met Fang's questioning stare and held up a finger, giving Val a few more 'mhm's before ending the call.

He turned to look down at Fang, watching him with furrowed brows. Fang could see his jaw working minutely, chewing on the inside of his cheek, and felt his blood run cold.

"What happened?"

"Val wouldn't say over the phone." He held Fang's gaze for another moment before nodding his head decisively. "We've got to book two tickets to Colorado." 

Fang straightened. "Two?" 

Dylan hitched his eyebrows and hummed in confirmation. "One for each of us. I know I'm not your first pick, trust me, but," he jerked his head towards the door to the exam rooms, "none of them will be any good to you for at least another twenty four hours. And whatever Val knows is about Max and it sounds serious. Let me come with you." His eyes drifted to focus on the floor at his feet and he shrugged with one shoulder. "I mean, if you want."

"You said it was too much," Fang repeated numbly. He was almost afraid of the way Dylan's words warmed through him like hope. He could still hear the earlier surrender creeping up and coating everything with a sticky sweet pang of guilt. "You said you were done." 

"I thought I was, but seeing Hans again just..." Dylan paused, ribs expanding and shoulders lifting, shaking his head. "It just reminded me. That I'm different than he says. That I'm not the thing he made me to be." He took another breath through flared nostrils and stood a little straighter, meeting Fang's gaze. "This needs to be done, and I can do it with you."

And as much as Fang ached to have the Flock with him again, helping him look for Max, the relief washed over him like air. Sometime between the sewers and the hospital, Dylan had become a friend instead of a burden, and Fang didn't want to give him up if he didn't have to. He reached out to grasp Dylan's forearm, squeezing once with brows drawn tight in gratefulness. "Thanks, man."

Dylan cracked a small smile. "'Course." He retreated to his side of the coffee table, sinking into his chair with Fang's phone still in his palm. He must have been thumbing through the flight finder app, because he stilled after a minute and said, "There's a direct flight to Denver that leaves at seven AM. That gives us two hours to finish up here, take a cab, and get through airport security, and it would put us back at the CSM before eight." He glanced up at Fang. "Is that okay?"

"Book it."

Fang turned back to the forgotten paperwork in his lap and scribbled hurriedly through the last half of Angel's form. He finished right on time to hand it to the nurse who'd just arrived for the opening shift, smiling too brightly with clean scrubs and a fresh coat of lipstick.

"They're out of it but they're awake. Would you like to see them?"

Dylan nodded as he stood and looked to Fang. "Do you want to tell them, or should I?"

* * *

**A/N: **How about that Valencia Martinez and her cryptic phone calls? Do you have any theories about why she was calling? The next chapter goes up on Sunday/Monday-ish, as per usual, and it has some answers.

**Nola96: **Haha, yes, awkward man apologies! I stressed so much over it, too, because there is SO MUCH going on in Fang's head and I needed to keep his actual spoken words low without making his apology sound dumb. And yeah, Dylan is awesome. He's known all along why Fang was so angry and he didn't let himself develop a grudge. That means that Fang gets to apologize and Dylan takes it for what it is, ready to move on.

**KLoves2Read: **I said it via email but I'll say it again, it's not magic, I swear it. If it's magic, it's a card trick with fifty-bajillion card switches that happen up my sleeves before you see the final trick.

**Guest: **Thanks for the review! I hope Dylan continues to grow on you. Don't worry, Fang is still Fang, he just needed to take a moment to refocus.

**Lustrex: **Your satisfaction is mine. That was a major goal for this chapter, in terms of Fang &amp; Dylan's relationship. And thanks for elaborating on the "someone's gonna die" vibe, that makes sense. I care about resolution too much to kill anyone off in the middle of a story. Except for Gunther-Hagen, but as was pointed out, he really reached the end of his rope. And I haven't watched Walking Dead, but I haven't ruled it out as something to watch eventually! I know it's well loved. I'm more of an Arrow, Agents of Shield, and Parks &amp; Rec kind of girl. (Thanks for catching that typo!)

**Bookwriter16: **Trust, girl. I wouldn't do that to you.

**WithoutWings: **Thank you so much for taking the time to explain! I mean, sure, I enjoy praise for my writing as much as the next writer (and usually it's actually edifying, since I am lucky to have intelligent reviewers), but I try to take all the criticism seriously, too. The whole reason I kept writing on FFN once I started was to learn. To remember how to write, and write well, and hone my craft. I've got the beginnings of the skeleton of an original novel and when I started writing scenes here and there, I realized I was just so completely out of practice and put it all down. So I'm borrowing Max Ride to learn from. And I can appreciate where you're coming from about the flamethrower. To be fair, I had to do a fair bit of research to figure out how they worked, if what I was describing in terms of shape and fire trajectory was accurate, and how they looked. Doing that kind of research should have been my clue to pay more careful attention to my description there. When I've finally finished writing the last chapters of OOS but before they're posted, I'd like to go back over all my chapters and apply the awesome critique I've been getting from readers. I'll definitely go back over the flamethrower entrance. Gunther-Hagen's fight, though, was supposed to be brief. I'll probably revisit it some to let the reader really feel the fire extinguisher as Fang covers the flames, but I wanted the _feeling_ of a quick end. I think the problem there was that I achieved that _feeling,_ and little else.

**j4bb3rwocky: **Wait, what? What was that? "Rooting for" Fang? *tiny victory dance* I'll save the big victory dance for when your roots lose their quotes. Yes yes yes on all the crits. That makes sense re: Dylan's licking. If I get the chance to go back like I want, I'll have to see if I can find an artful way to describe Dylan slobbering on his palm without actually detailing strings of saliva and the hocking noise in his throat when he's struggling to work up more. Though, maybe that wouldn't be all that bad... Fang tells him it's disgusting. Might as well show it, yeh?


	24. Chapter 23 - What Valencia Knew

**Author's Note: **Thanks to **KLoves2Read** for her fantastic help. She always pushes me in the right direction, and then I take her direction and I run with it like a freakin' kite. It is fun.

* * *

**CHAPTER 23 – WHAT VALENCIA KNEW**

"You motherfucker!" Nudge yelled and bent over to vomit into the sick pan in her lap.

Iggy glared with his whole body, nearly folded in half over the blankets twisted in his fists, his icy eyes bloodshot and puffy. "The hell we can't help. She's our family, too!" He tugged clumsily at the IV drip fastened to his arm but couldn't manage to get the tape off.

They were all still pretty out of it. Understatement.

Angel was sitting like a rag doll on her bed at the end of the line, white feathers crushed from lying on her back, sobbing messily with her palms limp and open to the ceiling on either side of her.

Gazzy just looked green.

Dylan leaned towards Fang and whispered, "They're taking it harder than they should. The drug really heightens everything on its way out of the system; emotions, anxiety, physical sensations..."

Fang wasn't sure if that factoid helped much. He already felt like crap, and now his family was ready to stage mutiny because he and Dylan were going to try to find Max without them. He did have the advantage, being able to stand without passing out and all.

He swallowed thickly, trying for firm but mostly just sounding exhausted when he said, "You guys need time to recover. Dylan and I will keep looking. We have to find Max." He stared blankly at the folds in the privacy curtain that had been pulled back between Nudge's and Angel's beds. He couldn't figure out how to look at the girls.

"Yeah, _we_ hafta go find Max," Nudge slurred, reaching blindly for a tissue to wipe her chin. "You can't serial-ously leave us here like sittin' turkeys, waitin' to get...to get body-snatched again!"

Fang clamped his jaw shut. He would have taken the Flock along in a heartbeat, but there was no way they could leave the hospital until they'd detoxed. And he didn't have the energy to argue, especially with a word-slurred Nudge. His head was pounding, his wrist could have still been on fire, his body was bruised, and he felt utterly and completely drained. He didn't need to be coming out of sedation to be two seconds away from an emotional meltdown.

If he was being honest, he was probably already having one.

He closed his eyes and tilted his head back against the wall, wincing.

Dylan looked at him from the corner of his eye before clearing his throat, redirecting Nudge's puffy-eyed glare. "Fang and I are going to get a head start. That's all. You guys have a lot of that drug in your system still; give it a day and a half. If we're lucky, we'll find Max by then, and if not, we'll need your help. So just, stay put for now and rest. Okay?"

"Day and a half?" Gazzy gaped at the ceiling and murmured, "So just another couple of hours...I can handle another couple of hours." He burped and groaned miserably.

Dylan looked at Gazzy, self-indicating with a hand in the air. "That estimate is from firsthand experience. Even with your enhanced healing abilities, you're going to be here overnight."

Iggy swiveled his head in Fang's direction, looking positively livid. "You'd better find her, Fang. Or you'd better fly, far, far away from this hospital, because I won't hesitate to break all your limbs before I shove a firecracker so far up your a-"

"He's doing his best," Dylan cut in sharply, his gaze hardening. "He found you guys, and he's trying to keep you safe. What more do you want?"

"Are you kidding me?" Nudge screeched and turned to point at Fang. "_You_ decided you were too important to call Gazzy and Angel, _you_ left us alone to go to Switzerland and rescue this dum-dum," she thumbed towards Dylan, "while the rest of us were _kidnapped!_ You_ lost _us and-!"

"Hey!" Dylan interrupted, bringing up a flat palm to halt her. "Lay off. Okay? His _wife_ is missing."

"My mom is missing," Gazzy mumbled at the fluorescent light above him. "She's my mom, and she's missing."

"He wishes he found Max instead of us. I can hear it!" Angel let out a shuddering sob and her head flopped onto one shoulder, tears rolling in rivers down her flushed cheeks.

"Oh, of course," Iggy spat cruelly. "Fang and Max, Fang and Max, it's always been them over us." His lips curled in a nasty sneer.

"And if Ella were missing, wouldn't you want to find her over everything?" Dylan pushed. Iggy opened his mouth as if to say something but stopped short with a tight-lipped frown, turning his glare to burn a hole through the door instead. "Besides," Dylan added, "you shouldn't be so eager to go running into danger. She needs you here, with the baby and all."

Fang stared at Dylan. Nudge's hissed 'whaaaat' covered the silence. Iggy's mouth fell slack. His head sort of wobbled on his shoulders, and when he blinked his long pale lashes it was slow and uncomprehending. "Wh-wh-whaddaya mean?"

Dylan's eyes went wide and he stammered, "Oh, I didn't...I mean, it's...never mind, I'm an idiot, forget I said that. Forget it, forget it. Shoot." He ducked under his palm as if the fluorescents were suddenly too bright.

Iggy gazed wondrously into space and murmured, "She's...I'm...we're having a baby?" He cracked a smile and then his face fell, twisting with urgency. He turned back to Fang to beg. "We gotta find her. Max has to be here for this, you know? El-Ella will need her - hell, _I'll_ need her - she's the only one of us who knows how to parent anything."

"Yeah." Fang's voice cracked and he wobbled as his knees threatened to give way. Dylan grabbed hold of his arm when he moved to slide down onto the floor, hauling him back up with an 'oh, no you don't' and holding him upright.

"Hey, Fang?"

Fang turned to look at Gazzy, who was still staring, open-mouthed, at the tile board ceiling. No one said anything for a few seconds. Fang sighed, "Yeah, Gaz?"

Gazzy let his head fall forward. He blinked for a moment before his eyes found Fang's. "Bring her home." His head teetered on his shoulders, eyes dilated with the drug and fighting to stay open. "She's the only mom I've ever had. I don't want to lose my mom." It was the lack of emotion in his slack expression that Fang hated most. He tried to slide down the wall again but Dylan only tightened his death grip on Fang's arm.

"We'll figure it out." Dylan's voice was honey-smooth, full of empty reassurance. "We're going to go talk to Dr. Martinez and we'll make a plan. You'll probably be able to get out of here tomorrow night, and then you can all help. But for now, you've got to get better. Okay?"

The only response was Nudge upchucking again in her little sick bucket. Dylan nodded sharply and turned to Fang, whispering, "We've got to get going if we're going to make our flight."

Fang dragged a hand through his hair. It was gritty, filled with grease and soot. He wiped his palm on his jeans. "Yeah. Yeah, okay."

Dylan waved as they left the Flock behind. Angel's sobs cut off abruptly as the door fell shut, leaving the two men alone in the quiet hallway. The adrenaline was gone and their sleepless night settled heavily around them. Fang followed Dylan listlessly, letting him lead the way out into a misting rain to hail a cab to the airport. He moved like a zombie through the TSA checkpoints, and as soon as he sunk into his seat, his eyes were closed. He slept hard but fitfully and woke with a start to Dylan shaking his shoulder.

"We're here, man. C'mon."

The wind in his feathers on the short flight between the airport and the office served to wake Fang up a little, but thinking was still like wading through molasses. The fear he felt for Max, the fear he'd been steadfastly ignoring, lapped at him steadily, threatening to fill him up and drown him. His skin felt clammy, there was pressure behind his eyes, and he couldn't quit picking at the hangnail on his ring finger. It somehow felt too narrow for his wedding band now, like he could lose it if he wasn't careful, and the thought terrified him enough that he curled his fingers and shoved his fist deep into his pocket.

When they arrived at the CSM, still bright and early, there were only two other people in their cubicles. The door to Val's office was cracked open.

"Val?" Dylan rapped twice and moved inside with Fang close behind. Her ashen face looked up from where she sat, slumped at her desk with her head cradled in her hands. There were three coffee cups scattered across her desk and papers in disarray.

"Thank god," she mumbled tiredly and straightened, wincing and pressing a hand to her lower back. "How's the Flock?" Her voice sounded froggy. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her hair falling out of her ponytail, her fingers twisting together nervously. She didn't look like she'd slept at all.

"They're in New York, on the mend. They should be discharged tomorrow." Dylan pulled the two chairs out from the front of Dr. Martinez's desk, nodding Fang towards one before sitting down.

The sheet of paper clutched in Val's trembling hands caught Fang's eye as he fell back into the chair. It was shaking like a leaf and crimped sharply under her thumb. "What is that?" He met her bloodshot eyes, carefully avoiding actually looking at the thing.

"It's a fax," she said in a choking whisper. "I've been staring at the page for hours now, trying to figure it out, but I'm getting nowhere. I feel so helpless." Her hand fell limp and the sheet drifted across the desk. From the corner of his eye, he could see a few lines of text and the mottled grey of a Xeroxed photo.

Dylan reached for it after a moment, leaning back in his chair and drawing his mouth into a stern frown. He held it out to Fang.

Fang didn't look. He didn't even blink.

Dylan drew the paper back with a quiet hum and looked to Val, speaking hesitantly, "Have there been more?"

Val's head wobbled, 'yes' and 'no' and 'I don't know' all rolled into one meandering shake. "We've been getting emails asking for the files for weeks, but it's not the first time we've had some...some whacko nutjob after the Itex research." She slid the elastic out of her hair and tried to regather her sloppy ponytail. "We never reply to any of them."

"But this is the first time they've threatened this?"

She nodded. "We had no idea they had her. No idea."

Fang was shaken out of his stillness, his stomach tightening. "Who has her? You know who has Max?"

Val shook her head, eyes widening helplessly. "The sender's fax number is unlisted. I tried every Google search I could think of, but there's nothing. And the emails that might be related are untraceable."

"What does it say?"

"It's not good, man." Dylan slid the crumpled fax over to Fang.

This time, he looked.

The automatically generated header was filled with numbers: the date, the time, the clearly foreign number of origin. There was a generic yahoo address at the bottom of the page. The message above it read:

URGENT:  
THERE IS MORE THAN ONE WAY TO RETRIEVE THE REQUIRED DATA  
DELIVER ALL ITEXICON RESEARCH DOCUMENTS CONCERNING GENETICS &amp; DNA RECOMBINATION AS REQUESTED WITHIN THREE DAYS OR  
MAXIMUM RIDE DIES

Fang blinked, eyes dragging down the page to look at the grainy image. It was Max. Her wings were sprawled awkwardly as she lay unconscious on a floor, skin blotchy with one arm twisting sickeningly behind her.

His insides turned to sludge. The pure, unadulterated fear he felt for his wife was suddenly burning hot, swallowing him whole, and he suddenly understood he could lose her. He could really lose her_. _He _was _going to lose her because he couldn't find her.

The chair caught roughly on the carpet when he stood up, making him stumble forward into the desk top. Two of Val's coffee cups toppled and rolled, watery brown trails tracking across the spread papers. Fang turned sharply toward the door, slamming his kneecap into the side of the desk, and then he was down on the floor on his hands and knees. His head bowed and his eyes burned and he couldn't stop the tears from finally spilling over. He drew shuddering breaths through clenched teeth, filling the office with his watery rattle.

"Fang," Dylan whispered quietly. He watched cautiously from his seat, leaning forward with one palm on the edge of the desk.

Val was a different story. Fang went down and she shot up, eyes wide with concern, and rounded the edge of her desk to look down on him. "Oh, Fang, honey-"

"We're free." His words were muddy, distorted with emotion. "We're safe, we aren't supposed to...to..." He sniveled and shook his head, sending a tear flying off the end of his nose to darken the carpet. "Some asshole scientist decides we're only as good as our DNA and now it's the School all over again." He rocked once on his knees, almost like he was going to get up, but dropped to his forearms with his head hanging slack from his shoulders. He clasped his hands at the back of his neck and shook.

Val hovered above him, arms reaching halfway towards his shoulders. She was on her knees before him the moment the first sob broke. She pulled him into her lap, shushing him softly and running her hand up and down between his wings.

"My wife is gone," he choked, pushing his words through clenched teeth. "Max is gone. They're going to kill her and I don't know where to look." He clutched desperately at Val, his head buried in her stomach and soaking her shirt. "I can't, I can't, I can't..." Couldn't do this. Couldn't lose her. Couldn't let her die. Couldn't, couldn't, couldn't.

"I know, honey, I know," Val's whisper cracked. She pressed his head against her with one hand, bending to breathe into the hair at the back of his neck and softly kissing him there.

"Have you thought about answering the demands?" Dylan's voice was hushed. "What if you emailed the files and tried to trace it or something?"

Val's grip on Fang tightened as she shook her head, turning her cheek into his neck and looking at Dylan. "The Freeze corrupts everything we touch. We can't."

"Oh." There was a scuff of denim against the scratchy upholstery as Dylan slouched in his chair. "I knew that. Sorry." There was the crisp sound of a paper being picked up from the desk. It was another moment before Dylan spoke again, "And you tried tracing the number?"

Val nodded again, lifting her head from Fang's sweaty neck. She kept up her long passes down his spine, pressure between his wings, flat-palmed and soothing. "It doesn't exist. The country code is the only helpful piece of information, but there are more than a hundred companies interested in genetics in Japan. I forwarded the fax to the officer handling the missing persons report, but the secretary said he wouldn't be in for another few hours."

Dylan hummed thoughtfully. "No, no, that helps. Japan is a relatively small country. Expensive to get over there, but, well..." He trailed off, shrugging. "It's worth it."

Val smoothed Fang's shoulder as he finally sat up on his heels, eyes downcast and cheeks flushed. She watched him for a moment before turning to Dylan. "It'll be more difficult than when Fang ran off to Switzerland. You'll need documentation. Visas," she clarified

"Mmm, true. At least we both have passports for work. I'm guessing visas take longer than we have, though." Dylan paused, narrowing his eyes in thought. "What if we fly into Hong Kong and then wing it the rest of the way?"

Val frowned. "That's a longer flight than you realize. A day and a half, maybe."

Dylan's face soured. "That's three days already, after the flight over the Pacific."

"Dayburn," Fang mumbled, coughing roughly to clear his throat. The other two fell silent and when he looked up, he found they were watching him expectantly. He cut his eyes over to a small snag in the carpet fibers. "A couple of weeks ago, he wanted me on assignment at a shoe factory in Japan. It got moved back, and then he was pushing New York, and...well...but there are two work visas and tickets to Nagasaki for me and a backup tech." His laugh was cold, tinged with despair. "If we can even convince Marty to let us go."

"No, no, that's good," Dylan said, nodding. "We should try that first. The quicker we can get there, the better. And now that we know he wasn't involved with Gunther-Hagen, there's less to worry about." He stood up with a groan, cracking his neck and holding an arm out to Fang.

Val took Fang's face between her hands and looked at him earnestly. "You go find her. Bring her back to me, huh, mijo?" She leaned forward to kiss him hard between the eyes, letting him go with one last press of her thumb on his jaw and a small, watery smile that wrinkled her nose and sent new tears sliding down her cheeks.

Fang turned to grab Dylan's wrist, letting himself be hauled back up. He couldn't meet Dylan's eyes, not after the way he'd just broken down. Still, Dylan was ready to go with him. He didn't have to go it alone. Fang smiled tightly, eyes still trained on the floor. He squeezed Dylan's wrist before letting go.

Marty would be there, in his office. It was almost nine in the morning on a Tuesday, and Marty was expecting him, anyway. Fang prayed he'd have at least two cups of coffee in him by the time they showed up, or this would be a lot harder than it needed to be.

* * *

**A/N: **So we'll be seeing Marty again in the next chapter. The jerk. _This_ chapter, though, is meant to be the climax of Fang's breakdown over Max. He's not out of the woods yet as far as emotional distress goes; there are still Things That Happen that will rob him of his agency and generally suck. But he had to get here first.

Fang has kept the breakdown at bay for a long time, attributable largely to the fact that he spent ages taking it all out on Dylan. But now their relationship has shifted in a major way. This changes things. A) Fang can't use him as the scapegoat anymore, and B) Dylan is there to carry the slack until Fang gets it together. He's been there to do it all along, but Fang is finally letting him. I wrote this specifically to show that Dylan is willing and capable of stepping up to lead, but he does it in a way that's still respectful towards Fang. He's not taking over, he's filling in.

Of course, now they have a new lead for Max, which means Fang has more of something to hold on to, which means he'll get back on his feet and get back to Doing Things. I hope his release has been cathartic, because it is time to move on!

On an unrelated note, I've just discovered the band "The Civil Wars." They are my new writing music - mellow and hauntingly beautiful and simple arrangements. I love them and I could probably listen to them forever. Or, like, a week and a half before I need to move on. **To those of you who write,** do you have specific music (artists? genres? albums?) that you go to when you're writing? What do you like about your music of choice? I keep wanting to beef up my movie score collection, since that works well for me.

**j4bb3rwocky: **I concede. Palahniuk is good for my writing. Heck, _reading_ is good for my writing. I am nearly done with Lullaby, and maybe tomorrow I will bike to the library and get a new book. Maybe Atwood, if they have her on the shelf (they should). Exercise my body so I can exercise my mind. Bam! And Dr. M is fun to write. So fun. I enjoy actually making her Hispanic-ish. Just tiny bits, because I know nearly nothing about Hispanic culture besides what I know from my Puerto Rican best friend from college, but it's better than not writing it at all. *wistful glance at canon novels*

**Nola96: **Your predictions for this chapter were great. Val knew of a threat, and she gets, like, a super-uber mom moment with Fang. And you, lady, are the one who's been gunning for his breakdown from the start. I thought of you when writing this chapter. I hope it was satisfying?

**KLoves2Read: **Val is da bomb. She is so fun to write as such a strong character, which I think makes sense considering her living-as-a-single-mom status. As for library cards - most libraries let you borrow eBooks now! And there are no late fees (at least when I've done it), the book just "expires" and you can't read it anymore. It is utterly fantastic.

**Guest: **Thanks!

**WithoutWings: **You are ALWAYS welcome to withhold theories in the interest of being able to say you knew it all along. Were you close with your theory about what Val knew? I kind of feel like the challenge was more about hanging onto the cliffhanger versus guessing what's going on, because clearly it was something bad about Max. But I'd still love to hear what you were thinking. As for Fang &amp; Dylan versus straight pining - I think that's one of the things that I'm learning as I write this. That I can show Fang thinking of her with little moments, but that I don't need all that internalized "wheeeeere is she?" stuff to move the story along or remind the reader incessantly that Max Is Important. My tendency at the beginning was to narrate straight train-of-thought emotional babble, and I tried to keep it short or cut it when I knew how because one of the things I hate most is reading fanfiction with paragraphs and paragraphs and paragraphs of characters wondering why they feel a certain way, but I only knew how to do so much. I think (I hope) I'm getting better at the whole "show-don't-tell" writing tenant with each chapter.

**Lustrex: **Wanna hear something funny? When I'm writing Fang lately, I keep trying to channel you and the way you write his internal dialogue in Catalyst. I don't know exactly what you do that makes it so good, but it's good and I want some of it in this story. And you're absolutely right about shifting to a different part of the story. The whole story can be divided up by the villain encounters. Pre-ter-Borcht was the setup. Ter Borcht to Gunther-Hagen is Fang &amp; Dylan like water &amp; vinegar. And Gunther-Hagen to [redacted] is Fang &amp; Dylan as BUDDYCOPS (as per Jay), getting the chance to work together now that Fang's pulled his head out of his ass. I'm aiming for these long stretches of character development and then BAM a villain encounter happens and something is forced to change, and then we get to relearn the characters with those changes.


	25. Chapter 24 - Dylan v Dayburn

**Author's Note: **Thanks to **KLoves2Read** for her continued excellence in helping me keep continuity.

* * *

**CHAPTER 24 - DYLAN V. DAYBURN**

Fang stepped briskly along the sidewalk, dragging the back of his wrist across his nose. It had been running ever since his breakdown in Val's office. He rubbed at his sticky eyes with his knuckles, hoping it wasn't completely obvious that he'd been crying. Because that was _exactly _what he wanted Marty to see.

Right.

He dug his heel down into the dirt at the bottom of a broken patch of sidewalk, hitting the crosswalk button with the side of his fist. Puffy-eyed or not, he doubted that Marty would be willing to drop the New York job without some serious persuasion. Fang needed those tickets to Japan. He wondered how far he could push Marty before he was out of a job. Then he wondered, if Marty wouldn't cooperate, if he could swipe the visa documents from Audrey's desk on the way out.

"I wanna come in this time." Dylan was trailing close behind Fang, hopping the curb onto the sidewalk on the other side of the street, the building for _National_ looming down the block.

"Can't hurt." Fang shrugged. "Maybe he'll like you more."

Dylan laughed good-naturedly and caught the door behind Fang, following him inside. "We'll see. He doesn't sound like he likes anybody at all."

The trip up to the third floor was quick, and when Fang opened the door to the office, everything was in full swing. The clacking of two dozen keyboards competed with the whizzing of the coffee maker as _National's _worker bees hunched over their work stations.

"Ride, hey!" A man in a plaid button up and jeans called to Fang from his one-hip perch against the counter next to the coffee pot.

"Tanner." Fang tilted his head in a nod, not intending to slow down, but Tanner kept talking.

"No one's seen you around for a while. We thought maybe Dayburn finally broke you." He wiggled his eyebrows and took a loud sip from his Styrofoam cup. He hummed into his coffee and drew his brows together, licking his lips and asking, "Is it true, what they said on the news?"

That was when Marty looked up from behind the glass walls of his office, catching Fang's eye and hardening his features. Fang slid to a stop, suddenly okay with stalling for a second, and turned to his coworker. "Depends, what's on the news?"

His voice was hushed. "They said your family was abducted by an underground geneticist in New York. Some Liam Neeson shit or something." He searched Fang's face for confirmation.

Fang slipped into his familiar, cool façade. He refused to slip back into breakdown mode. He needed to be on point when he got into Marty's office.

Tanner went on, "We all figured that's why you've been gone so much. But Nick, my friend, Dayburn has been so _pissed _the past two weeks, and Lawsely said Manning overheard him say your name when he was going off on Audrey the other day."He took another nursing sip of his coffee, popping his hip to push himself up from the counter. "I seriously hope your 401k is fully vested."

Fang pursed his lips. "Thanks for the warning, but I saw him yesterday. We're cool."

Tanner looked dubious but nodded anyway, fitting a lid to his coffee cup. "Good luck, anyway. It's still Dayburn. You don't know what you're walking into until you walk into it, am I right?"

Fang hitched his eyebrows and hummed, stepping aside as Tanner headed back to his desk and turning to see Dylan waiting patiently a few more paces down the hall.

He leaned in when Fang caught up, easily falling back into step. "Do you want me to do the talking?"

Fang shook his head. "I got it." It was still his boss, after all. Dylan didn't know how to deal with him. Then again, it wasn't like Fang knew how to deal with him, either.

He cleared his throat and rapped on the glass door. He fought to keep his face straight when Marty looked up from behind his glasses with ice in his eyes, fingers lingering over the papers he'd just cross-stacked neatly. Dylan poked Fang in the small of his back and he tensed before pulling the door open and stepping into the office, Dylan close behind.

"Marty."

Silence.

Fang gulped a deep breath, strode right up to the desk, and grasped the edge tightly. His thumb shifted the black leather desk blotter and Marty's face twisted in annoyance. Fang's pulse picked up under the chill of his boss' stare and he found himself pulling back from the desk sharply, shoving his fists in his pockets, eyes on his shoes. He couldn't screw this up.

"You look like shit, Ride."

Fang hesitated, his words caught before they could leave his teeth.

Marty's eyes raked across him, brows arched condescendingly and he tried to stand a little taller. His eyes were bloodshot from tears and flamethrower smoke. His left hand was useless, swollen fingers poking out of bright white gauze. He probably had bruises under his eyes, considering he hadn't slept for more than 24 hours. He pressed his thumb into the numb spot on his thigh self-consciously.

The leather Lazzaro Collection executive chair groaned as Marty finally leaned back, eyes sliding behind Fang to rest on Dylan. "I don't remember saying it was 'Bring a Friend to Work' day."

Fang's mouth went dry and he wet his lips nervously, clenching his jaw. _Keep it together_. He felt Dylan shift beside him, coming up to stand right in front of Marty and thrusting out a flat palm to shake.

"Hi." His brilliant smile would have been contagious had the men in the room been susceptible. "I'm Dylan."

Marty eyed Dylan's hand skeptically. Dylan's smile only widened as he withdrew. "I'm a cousin of Nick's. I told him I was interested in what he did, and he mentioned you might be able to send a second guy for an extensive assignment in Japan. I'd like to be that guy."

Marty's expression flickered. "A cousin?"

Dylan shrugged loosely, flashing his feathers, and Marty's eyes blew wide. Dylan laughed and brought his palm to the back of his neck self-consciously. "I know I don't have any experience in the field, but I can lug equipment. And I can go where he goes." He placed one hand on Fang's back, on top of his wings, making his point.

For a few excruciating seconds, the hollow tick of the second hand on the cheap wall clock was the only sound. Fang curled and uncurled his toes inside his sneakers, watching Marty carefully. He'd been around long enough to know that Marty didn't do favors, and he definitely didn't like being told what to do.

The silence broke in a jarring creek as Marty leaned forward, planting his dry elbows on his desk, face splitting into a bemused grin. "You're interested in going to Japan, huh? What was it, David?"

"Dylan," said Dylan.

"Dylan." Marty nodded, pursed lips fighting to curl into a thin smile. "Well, Ride, you've got good timing. I just got off the phone with my contact in New York."

Fang's stomach plummeted. This was going to get ugly. "That's actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I-"

"Long story short, Ride, they want you in Japan first."

Fang faltered. "Sorry?"

Dylan's eyes flashed between Fang and Marty, confused. He whispered loudly, "The people from the New York job want you in Japan?"

Marty nodded emphatically. "It's all part of the same project. Did I tell you, Ride?"

No, he hadn't. "Shoe factories?"

Marty waved a hand dismissively. "Not just shoes, Ride. Anything with a fuckin' sweatshop. Human interest piece, remember?" He swiveled to beam at Dylan. "We could use a guy like you. This is a really important piece, you realize? And there's no better place to learn the ins and outs of photojournalism, and no one better to learn from than Ride, here," Marty said, thumbing towards a wide-eyed Fang.

Dylan clapped Fang on the shoulder and smiled broadly. "No doubt, sir. I've always wanted to go to Japan. When Nick said the spot might be open, I just had to jump on it. I mean, I'd fly myself," another rustle of his feathers, "but I'd have to train for a marathon to do it."

Marty leaned back and laughed, jiggling with great, booming guffaws. "A marathon!" He looked at Fang and pointed towards Dylan. "Wants to fly himself to Japan. Can you believe this guy?" His laughed died down into a hissing sort of chuckle and he cleared his throat, sitting up and looking at Dylan seriously. "Of course, you're not actually an employee of _National Geographic._ I'm gonna have to ring up HR and see if we can get you cleared for the job, but I'm sure it won't be a problem." He leaned forward on his elbows, tilting his head ingratiatingly.

Dylan nodded eagerly. "Of course. I understand."

"If you'll just, uh, if you'll just step outside for a moment, I'll see if I can get you settled. Darren, right?"

"Dylan," Dylan said, undeterred. Marty clicked his tongue, pointing at Dylan with both hands. He gestured to the door, fingers fluttering. "It'll be just a minute." The men left the office with Marty's eyes on their backs.

The door fell shut behind them, leaving them alone in the hallway outside Dayburn's office, the murmur of the other employees carrying along the walls. Dylan hummed happily and slid his thumbs into his belt loops, looking very pleased. "That went well, I thought."

Fang turned to Dylan, jaw slack. "What the hell just happened?"

Dylan shrugged demurely. "Honestly, I'm shocked he went for it that quickly. I mean, I figured it was a decent line, you know, to say I wanted to learn the ropes, but-"

"Not you," Fang said, looking back inside to where Marty was hunched over the desk phone, pen tapping rapidly on the desk. "My boss."

Dylan shrugged again. "He seemed alright, actually."

Fang shook his head, eyes disbelieving. "He hates _everybody_."

"Ah." Dylan looked away, embarrassed, shifting on his heels. "Genetic engineering, man. You can't help how you're made." He gave Fang a look, all arched eyebrows and self-deprecating little smile. "You just get to choose what you do with it."

There was a muffled cry of '_Ride'_through the glass and the men looked to see Marty gesturing them back inside hurriedly.

"How soon can you leave?" he spun out before the door could fall shut, fixing Fang with an unblinking stare.

It only took Fang a second to catch up. "Uh, any time."

Marty beamed and pointed between the two of them. "Fantastic! There's a flight leaving in two and a half hours, I want you guys on it." When he turned to Fang, the grin slid off his face and his gaze hardened. "This job is time-sensitive, Ride. You can't fuck it up, got it?"

Fang nodded, glancing at Dylan. "Sounds good."

Marty cleared his throat and sat up to straighten the neat stacks on his desk. "Audrey'll have your flight details and job specs printed for you already. Make sure you stop at her desk on your way out." He stilled and looked up over the rims of his glasses. "I mean it. Don't you dare miss that fucking plane."

"No sir." Fang shook his head, already turning to leave.

He stumbled out of the office for the second time, completely shell-shocked. Dylan kept glancing back at him as they went out the way they came in, slowing at the front desk where a young woman in a fitted blouse slid a thin file across the countertop. The phone rang and Dylan thanked her quickly. She blushed, holding eye contact for a moment, even as she answered the call.

When they stepped onto the pavement, door falling shut behind them with a whump, Dylan turned to grin gleefully at Fang. "We've got this." He gripped Fang's shoulder, squeezing, before giving him a little shove. "We're going to find her."

Fang nodded, shaking off the weirdness of his boss's mood swing and feeling his heart rate spike. "Yeah." His parted lips twisted in the beginnings of a smile and he met Dylan's eyes. Finally, his feet were on solid ground. "Yeah, we've got this."

And then they were on the move again.

They stopped at the apartment for a hot second, indulging in three-minute showers, a change of clothes for each, and grabbing up Fang's photography equipment. They were at the airport in another ten, sweaty and windblown but ready to travel.

By the time they made it to the gate, they had about half an hour until boarding. Dylan went off to brush his teeth and Fang collapsed into a bucket seat in the waiting area. His lack of sleep caught up with him in under a minute and he found himself drifting in and out, head nodding. He groaned when Dylan pulled him up by the elbow to drag him onto the plane, sinking right back into sleep the moment he hit the chair.

Fang had a vague idea of Dylan flipping through Skymall next to him, but he must have fallen asleep, too. He woke Fang with a startled snore, all bleary-eyed, when they landed in Tokyo twelve hours later in the late afternoon on Wednesday. They trudged through customs, mercifully painless this time, and endured the final two hour flight to Nagasaki with bouncing knees and furtive glances out the window.

Dylan tried to See Max from the plane, but couldn't seem to find her. Fang's face fell and Dylan shook his head, holding his gaze.

"She's here. We _know_ she's here."

Fang nodded sharply and turned back to the window, unseeing eyes fixed on nothing as the plane trundled down the runway toward the terminal.

Dylan sighed next to him, head lolling back on the seat rest.

"We just have to find her."

* * *

**A/N: You guys, we are going to go find Max! As I put the final touches on the last few chapters, I'd love to hear your theories. What do you think will happen in Japan? What do you think you see coming?**

Sometimes I feel like I spend too long writing review responses - except that it's one of my favorite parts of FFN, and I love it when other authors take the time to respond to my reviews, so I'm always looking to do it right for you, too! But seriously...lots of time. Like, at least half an hour. When **thestupidgenius1123** posts her chapters with an author's note saying there's no time for author's notes, _I totally get it._

**Nola96: **I'm doin' a happy dance. I'm so glad Fang's breakdown moment was satisfying for you. You've been asking for it for basically this entire story! And writing the flock for the first half of the chapter was such a satisfying challenge. I always feel like I'm juggling when I write them, trying to balance so many characters and keep them on point, but the end result is fun and quirky and, from what I hear, makes for a satisfying read.

**Lustrex: **Right? The opening line last chapter is, I think, my favorite opening line that I've written, maybe ever. Writing strong opening lines is something that I don't like to _work_ too hard at, lest it sound contrived, but every once in a while I pop one out that makes me laugh every time I reopen the document for editing. And yes, I am totally channeling your Fang. I _like_ your Fang. Obviously he's in a very different role in _Catalyst_ than in _Out of Sight,_ since in yours he's quiet support, doing a lot of living in his own head, and mine is the action-driven protag, but even so. My favorite Max Ride fanfics are ones that can take Fang and, instead of ignoring his character flaws, take them and show how he's grown past them or out of them, or focus on the good parts around those flaws.

**j4bb3rwocky: **"The way you set things up so it continues to be just Fang and Dylan is pretty good. It doesn't come across as a contrivance." Good! That was one of the big things I was trying to avoid this chapter, because from a writing-goal point of view, it _is _contrived. Before I had the idea to have GH just drug them silly, they had only been locked up, so Fang would have had to pull excuses to keep the Flock at home out of his ass. That's part of the reason why Ella's pregnancy became a thing - Fang was going to use 'the baby' to guilt Iggy into staying, while Nudge would have to go back to work on the virus still crippling the CSM, and Gazzy and Angel were going to be brushed aside as "just kids" again. Which was A) hard to do believably and B) hard to do without Fang being a complete ass. And at this point in the story, he's not supposed to be a complete ass. SO, in came dormosedan, which really is a horse sedative but who knows what it does to recombinant DNA I guess, and Fang has a solid reason to move on without them.

**KLoves2Read: **I love when I can post a chapter that took some extra behind-the-scenes work, something that got tough comments from you, and then you reread it and it's like magic. Your direction helps me get to these places!

**DntlessAnnabeth: **Thanks for your review! Likewise twisted, _writing_ breakdowns like that? It's kind of fun. Especially in this case, Fang's breakdown is the culmination of so much stress; he had to break at some point,_ really_ break, and at the same time it's this cathartic release for him. He's finally recognizing how bad this is, finally acknowledging it, he has his moment, and then he sucks it up and starts figuring out how to move on. The purpose of the breakdown is just as satisfying as the breakdown itself.

**WithoutWings: **I'm glad that you could see Fang beginning to rely on Dylan in the last chapter. That is one of the major character developments I'm trying to work with in this whole Fang &amp; Dylan arc. Hopefully you'll see that trusting bond continue to grow over the next few chapters as they head into Japan. As for who the villain is...well, we'll get there. Thanks for the comment on my writing progression, too! As I've mentioned a few times, I want to go back and polish previous chapters before I post the final ones. While I'm excited for the chance to apply everything, I'm also a little hesitant. I know it's only been two months since this began, but I know I've improved so I'm not sure what I'll find back there, haha!

**Thanks for the music recommendations, guys! I'll dig into some of those soon. I'm a little tired of The Civil Wars already, but that's probably because I played their albums on Spotify at work all week long as well as at home. I'm a music glutton...**


	26. Chapter 25 - High Stakes in Nagasaki

**Author's Note: **Thank you, **KLoves2Read,** for keeping me on the ball!

* * *

**CHAPTER 25 - HIGH STAKES IN NAGASAKI**

"Can you See her yet?"

Dylan groaned loudly and scrubbed his face. "Dude, I'm working on it. Okay? Promise." He pulled a button-up shirt from the ball of fabric on the bed in front of him, shaking it roughly before spreading it on the bed to smooth the wrinkles out with his palm. He was busy folding his 'luggage' - a handful of shirts and the second pair of pants he'd borrowed from Fang, and the fresh pack of boxers he'd picked up in the duty free shop at the airport.

Fang frowned but shut up, settling for digging his fingers into the rough bedspread in their astronomically tiny hotel room. His sneakers felt too tight, but he hadn't bothered taking them off yet. They had landed in Japan with an armful of journalism equipment and no new leads on Max. The hotel room was as good a place as any to regroup, and it was already paid for.

He bit his tongue to keep from asking Dylan again and tried sorting through what they knew instead. The list was depressingly short:

One – They had traced the death-fax to _somewhere_ in Japan.

Two – Max was being held captive _somewhere_ in Japan (possibly) by someone who wanted information about her genetic structure (definitely) and was willing to kill her (too terrifying to consider) to get it.

Three – Fang and Dylan were now in Japan.

Fang's cell buzzed and Dylan glanced over, eyes darting between the phone and Fang's unfocused gaze. "Shouldn't you get that?"

Fang fought the urge to roll his eyes and made an unimpassioned grab at the phone. "Yo," he intoned dully.

Marty's gruff voice blared through the ear piece. "Where's my check-in, Ride? I need to know you're not gonna play hooky this time around."

Fang pinched his eyes shut. "We're in the hotel."

Marty's groan was muffled. "You and Dylan had better be at ASIX within the hour, Nick. The contact called, Yummy or Yoomee or something - she's waiting to give you the tour, and if you miss it, so help me _God_, I will pull your funding and you can paddle a fucking canoe home."

Fang clenched his phone a little tighter. "I'll get it done."

"I expect to hear from you when you're finished, capiche?"

Fang didn't even have to conjure up a nauseatingly placid response. Marty just hung up on him. He glared at the dark screen before turning his gaze on Dylan. His momentary disappointment at finding Dylan's eyes on him instead of focused and trying to See was elevated exponentially as soon as Dylan opened his mouth.

"We should go to that shoe factory."

"Are you kidding?"

Dylan shrugged helplessly, pulling his t-shirt over his head and grabbing the button-up by the sleeve. "We don't have a plan. And your boss's support is really helpful. It'll take, what, an hour?"

Fang ground his teeth, considering.

"Besides, who knows. We might learn something while we're there."

"What, now you speak Japanese, too?"

"A little." Dylan's cheeks tinged pink. "Do you have a better idea?"

He didn't. Fang sighed and shrugged into his work shirt, fastening the buttons over his undershirt. He wrapped the strap from his camera back around one fist and stood up, turning toward the door.

"C'mon."

In the taxi cab, Fang sat rigidly, stare fixed out the window. The driver kept his mouth shut, nervously glancing at him in the rearview mirror every few seconds. Dylan largely ignored him, sitting stiffly and twisting to Look behind them for Max. Fang's knee bounced anxiously. It sucked to be so close and still have no idea where Max could be. As annoyed as he was that Dylan agreed with Dayburn about making the trip to ASIX, he was right that they didn't have any other ideas about where to start. Maybe he'd be able to concentrate better if he finished the job and got Dayburn off his ass.

It wasn't long before the taxi pulled up in front of a long, low concrete building, painted dirt brown and devoid of windows. While Fang flipped through foreign currency, Dylan stepped out of the cab, stretching with his hands on his lower back and rolling his head to crack his neck.

"Man, my back is so sore_. _All this traveling..."

Fang moved to join him as the cab pulled away. He watched Dylan breathe deeply, closing his eyes against the nippy breeze that was coming in from the nearby coast.

"The ocean's a good boundary when I'm Looking. I mean, it's still an entire country, but it's not huge, you know? I sift through the things I can see until I'm looking at people in bathing suits and then I start over again."

He closed his eyes with another sigh. Fang coughed pointedly, eyeing him appraisingly before nodding toward the door. "Let's get this over with."

Dylan nodded and headed towards the building, lazily taking it in. He frowned and pointed at a cardboard sign picketed out front, elbowing Fang.

"D'ya see that?"

Fang followed Dylan's outstretched arm to the sign, glossing over the unreadable characters to squint at the words he could read. And he remembered Max, sitting on the couch with the news on like always, with the nasally voice of Kathy Kelly filling the living room.

Dylan turned halfway towards Fang. "Who's Genitex?"

Fang answered without looking. "Some sort of research company, I think. They've been in the news a lot for high-profile mergers with unrelated companies." He frowned. "I don't know why Dayburn didn't say anything. Could be a fresh angle for the story."

"Maybe he didn't know." Dylan shrugged. "That sign looks brand new."

Fang pulled his eyes away to enter the building. A petite woman in a pale yellow suit stood waiting at the entrance with a polite smile and a small bow. Fang nodded respectfully.

She spoke brightly in near-perfect English, "Welcome to ASIX Shoe Manufacturing, Ride-san, and friend." She tilted her head towards each of them with a close-lipped smile. "My name is Yume Kimura. I am the C.O.O. for ASIX Shoe. We are so pleased to host you here at our company. Please, allow me to show you the facility."

Fang thanked her and smiled tightly, following Yume through the lobby with Dylan trailing quietly behind. The building itself was massive, but the manufacturing seemed to take place in just a small portion of the factory. She walked them briskly through the production line, offering a brief explanation of the different processes that the thirty or so employees were assigned to.

Fang followed without really watching, mind still stuck on the sign out front. Yume was explaining the merits of synthetic versus natural materials when he cut in, "Why did Genitex purchase ASIX?"

Yume's eyes went wide in shock at the interruption. She recovered gracefully, folding her hands in front of her and smiling sweetly. "Genitex hopes to encourage Japanese business while creating revenue to fund their many projects. ASIX Shoe was failing, but Mr. Tanaki purchased the company, as well as several coastal islands where we plan to relocate production. We have already won a new tender and will be able to create new jobs soon."

Fang's gaze swept across the manufacturing floor, fixing on a pair of double-doors at the far end of the room. He nodded, "What's that, through there?"

"That is currently unused space. Much of Japan suffered after the nuclear spill. ASIX was no exception. But Mr. Tanaki has promised that we will soon again make full use of our facility." She smiled brightly and directed them towards a narrow hallway near the back of the room. "We have plenty of room to grow."

Fang couldn't stop looking at those double-doors. The glass windows were dark, but he thought he was picking up a low mechanical hum on the other side. Whatever was in there, it wasn't abandoned. He caught Dylan's eye, brows raised questioningly, cutting his gaze toward the double doors. Dylan's expression flashed with understanding and he Looked across the room.

Yume coughed politely into her wrist and tried again to move them along. "Let us walk to my office. There, I can answer any further questions you may have. This way, please."

Fang stopped her, peeling up the Velcro on the lid of his camera bag. "Is it alright if I take a few pictures first?"

Yume smiled sweetly, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "It is not good timing for you. The workers are about to be relieved for the day. We will go to my office now, and tomorrow, you may take your photographs."

Fang refastened his camera bag, heaving a sigh but keeping his mouth shut. He reminded himself that a guaranteed second day was good if it meant prolonged funding.

When Yume turned again to lead them down the narrow hallway, Dylan looked to Fang, brows furrowed in a silent attempt at communication. Fang had no idea what Dylan was trying to say. He was all wide eyes and pointed glances back at the double doors. His over-expressive features left Fang feeling uneasy.

Yume began a history of ASIX as she led them past a stretch of dark doorways to empty offices. Her heels clicked sharply on the linoleum, echoing off the white-washed concrete walls and amplifying the feeling of claustrophobia creeping in. Fang flinched when Dylan grabbed his bicep and hissed quietly in his ear.

"Erasers. There are Erasers in her office."

"You sure?" Fang whispered back. He groaned internally at how stupid his question was. Of course Dylan was sure. He Saw.

Fang's heart pounded. _Trap, trap, trap. _He pulled up short and lifted his phone from his pocket. Dylan collided with Fang's back, air escaping his lungs in a _whoosh._ Yume turned around abruptly, thin brows puckered in confusion.

"It's my boss." Fang smiled apologetically and jiggled his phone with his thumb. "I've got to take this."

Yume looked torn in a hurried, annoyed sort of way, but managed a polite smile and nodded. "Of course."

"Uh, can I...?" Fang gestured to one of the empty offices. "Just a little privacy."

Her lower lip tensed minutely as she nodded and permitted him to enter with one close-fingered hand.

"Thank you," Fang nodded and reached around to flip the light switch. "I'll just be a minute." He slipped inside, dragging Dylan along by the elbow, mind racing. It had been almost two days since the Flock was rescued and taken off the sedative. Nudge had to be coherent by now, right? Even if she was still kind of groggy, she would still be the quickest way to get the information he needed. He wasn't really sure what time it was state-side, but he hoped Nudge picked up anyway.

The phone was already ringing when the door swung shut behind Dylan. He raked a hand through his hair and Looked back through the door. "Dude, she's gonna think it's weird you pulled me in here for a 'private' phone call. What the hell are you doing? We've got to get out!"

Fang shushed him as Nudge picked up, voice thick with sleep.

"Hullo?"

"I need a favor, Nudge. Do you have a computer nearby?"

"Of course," she drawled, voice muddy with a yawn, "But it's so eeeeearly."

"Right now, Nudge. Who's Genitex, and what are they doing with ASIX Shoe Manufacturing?" There was a rustle of sheets and a grunt and then incoherent grumbling. Fang turned to Dylan and hissed, "How many?"

Dylan blinked rapidly, taking a second to realize what Fang was asking. "Uh, four. Four Erasers." He paused. "We can handle four, can't we?"

"It doesn't matter. They know we're here. Even if we take 'em out, there'll be more." Fang turned his back to Dylan when Nudge started speaking.

"You owe me big, you know. Like, shopping at Chanel big. _And_ Jimmy Choo."

"Nudge."

"Okay, okay. So. Genitex is the leading producer of biotech in Japan right now. Looks like they supply for a couple of military tech companies. Uuuuuh...I can't find anything about ASIX that's current. It looks like the company was purchased and dissolved a month ago. It doesn't even exist anymore."

Fang cursed under his breath, dragging one hand through his hair.

Nudge gasped, "Wait, are you _there_?"

"Yeah." He tried to ignore the way Dylan was bouncing agitatedly, Staring through the door. The faint sound of heel-clicks faded down the hallway.

"Fang," he hissed.

"Ohmigod," Nudge whispered and the phone line was filled with the soft patter of keystrokes. "Fang, did you know Genitex just published research on developments in _bio-upgrade technology_? With _avian_ _DNA_?" Her voice raised a few pitches and she babbled on, "How did the CSM miss this? You guys are in big trouble. I'm gonna wake up Iggy, and Gazzy and Angel, and – well, I walked to the bathroom by myself a couple hours ago so I'm sure we're good to fly by now – and we can get to you by-"

"_Nudge,_" Fang cut her off. "We've got this. Stay there. Finish getting better. We already talked about this."

"Fang," Dylan spoke, a little louder, tension edging his voice.

"No! Fang, we're a family! You don't get to-"

"Fang!"

The door swung open and slammed into the wall, handle punched through the plaster. Four hulking, fully-morphed Erasers bounded in. Yume was long gone. The office filled with inhuman growls and the putrid stink of rotting gums like sun-ripened corpses. Fang whipped around, phone flying across the room to shatter against the wall. He only had a second before the first Eraser slammed into him.

It was a disorienting haze of muscle memory and rusty technique. Fang threw punches with terrifying accuracy but failed to twist out of reach when the wolves came at him. And Dylan was barely holding his own, taking twice as many hits as he landed.

"Focus!" Fang threw a wild punch at the grizzly maw coming at him. He nearly folded in half when a hairy fist collided with his stomach.

Dylan yelped when an Eraser slashed at his thigh, tearing ragged gashes through denim but missing flesh. "I'm trying!" He brought his elbow down, dropping the creature like a sack of rocks and taking a world-spinning hit across the jaw from the next one.

Fang jabbed the side of his palm into a windpipe, twisting for a roundhouse kick. The beast hit the wall with a sickening crack. Something snarled at his neck and he rammed his elbow back into soft flesh. The beast yelped and fell on him, landing a heavy blow to the ribs before it was dropped with a powerful clap to the ears.

"Dylan!" Fang launched himself at the fourth Eraser as it tore into the feathers on Dylan's back. Bloodied claws slashed at Fang's face. He hooked his foot around one hairy ankle to pull it off-balance. It went down and Fang delivered a swift kick to its temple, making it fall still.

That was about when the adrenaline peaked. It hit Fang with a sick rush that made his head pound and his knuckles go numb.

There wasn't anything else to hit.

He slid to the floor, back to the wall, fighting for breath.

Dylan panted heavily, his left eye already swelling shut. He muttered his thanks to Fang for taking his last guy out, fingers feathering across his nose to feel for a break before swiping at the trickle of blood on his upper lip. He turned his turquoise eyes on Fang and cringed, looking sick. "Oh, man... Dude, your ear..."

Fang's fingers flew up to the side of his head, ghosting over the sticky drip of blood before hovering over the jagged tear in the top of the lobe. His eyes pinched shut and he leaned forward, bracing his trembling hands on the concrete and pushing himself back to his feet. "We've got to move. More will come." He nudged a limp arm with the toe of his sneaker. "They're Gen One. I didn't know they even made these anymore."

He turned away from the scene and hovered in the doorway to listen. There was nothing. No heel-clicks from Yume. No chatter from employees. Even the background rumble of the manufacturing equipment had gone silent. Or maybe it was that he couldn't hear anything over the pounding of his heart in his ears.

He turned back into the room, scanning for a second door, an air vent, anything to avoid going back through that hallway. He hurried towards the desk so he could reach the ventilation grate in the corner but stopped short at Dylan's agitated scowl. Fang reached out to grab his shoulder, concerned, and Dylan flinched violently, looking up from the bloodied floor. His wild gaze fixed on Fang and his eyes widened in urgency.

"Islands! Fang, she said Genitex has been buying _islands_!" He ran his hands over his head until his hair stood on end. "I've been looking over the mainland this whole time!" His breaths came in shallow as his eyes darted frantically around the room. His gaze settled on one of the walls and his whole body tensed.

Fang had the grate unscrewed and lying on the desk when Dylan's face went ashen, good eye glazing over even as the other swelled shut.

"Oh...Oh, no..."

Dylan's hissed words made Fang run cold.

"I found her."

* * *

**A/N: **You guys, it is so late for me. I am so tired. I could barely get my thoughts together for long enough to do my last edit of this chapter. I spent a lot of time on the fight scene, actually, trying to tighten up the language, and I'm hoping I was at least somewhat successful. It's a pretty quick skirmish and it's supposed to be very high-energy so there's not really room for lengthy descriptions until the men are cataloging wounds at the end.

**Lustrex: **Hmm, I like Faylan better than Dylang, if we're making a bro-ship name. Faylan sounds like it could be something real. What about Fylan? Or Dang? Short and sweet? I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter, in regards to the F&amp;D relationship. Not as many opportunities for the broship to shine, since Things are Happening and they've gotta be dealt with. And Fang is so close, he can taste it!

**Nola96: **Yeeeah, Marty's an asshole. I thought it would be interesting to stick both Fang &amp; Dylan in a room with him. He also has a precedent for hating Fang, whereas he's never met Dylan before in his life.

**DntlessAnnabeth: **I totally agree! Any longer looking for Max and the story would just drag. But now Dylan has a lock on her, so they can get on with it.

**KLoves2Read: **I did ditch the 'Coffee Pot' nickname! Because I realized that Fang would know the guy's name, so he wouldn't call him something as impersonal as "Coffee Pot" in his internal dialogue. That's just weird.


	27. Chapter 26 - Max

**Author's Note: ** **KLoves2Read** is the kind of beta-reader who does behind-the-scenes grunt work and STILL comes back to read and review. You should all thank her for getting confused about this chapter first, so you didn't have to.

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**CHAPTER 26 – MAX**

Everything hurt.

Her reality didn't extend further than that. Max let out a stuttering groan, thoughts tripping over one another as she floated in a medicated haze.

_He had screamed so loud when his fingers twisted in hers, pulled too-far through the narrow food slot. One of the granola bars broke in half when it hit the floor._

She turned her head and blinked, bleary-eyed, at the unfocused patches of light around her. Soft blue ovals danced in her vision, coming together and drifting apart against the dark backdrop of wherever she was.

_She hadn't even had to break anything, in the end. Keys were quickly shoved past knobby knuckles, metal against skin, leaving red lines. This guy had to be the wimpiest, most cowardly whitecoat she'd ever had the displeasure of meeting._

Sweat made the smooth floor sticky beneath her. She shifted restlessly on her back, jostling her right arm against a wall, and bit into her tongue. Hard. She twisted to spit out the blood, tongue hanging thickly from her lips. Her arm rang with pain. It hurt, it hurt, it hurt, making her eyes pinch shut and her lips part in a silence gasp. Her entire body tensed to keep it from happening again, neck arching, pushing her nose against something cold, thin, and unyielding.

_She had gaped for a hot second, caught off-guard by how quickly the little worm gave in. Then she was yanking the door open, jerking Pimple Guy halfway into the cell by the fingers still caught in the slot and darting past him into the hallway. She took off toward the east end, bare feet slapping on the linoleum, sprinting toward the room with all those windows and resolutely ignoring the tenderness in her ribs._

The initial jolt of pain finally tapered off. She took careful, shallow breaths, cradling her bent arm to her chest protectively. She felt the gauze that was binding it tightly against her body, the something hard splinting the bones beneath the wrapping. Her whole body felt bruised, achy and weary and used, but her right arm...her arm was broken. The worst she'd ever had, probably. She couldn't even move her fingers or her wrist without wanting to die a little.

And the fall that had shattered her hollow bird bones? She had never, ever felt so utterly helpless, completely, stomach-to-her-toes terrified as she had when she opened her wings and they didn't catch her.

_She had reached the door to the lab in the next hall, heart thrumming wildly in her ears, and yanked it open without a thought. The door hit the wall with a resounding crack. Six heads shot up, eyes wide._

_There were men with dark hair and yellowish skin and white coats, most of whom she'd seen before. Ponytail was there. And Gruff McScruff, too, tall and stiff in a tailored suit and his nasty steel-toed boots, looking at her with eyes like ice. They were hovering around one of the lab tables, bent over microscopes, papers, an old CRT monitor with an image of blurry gray worms writhing in one corner. _

She opened her eyes again, blinking at the wire gate pressing into her nose. The hatched metal filled her vision, as did the metal plate on one side keeping her fingers from the spring lock on the crate door. She made herself focus past it, scanning the empty room with the white cinderblock walls and white linoleum floors and buzzing fluorescent lighting washing everything out, making her headache worse.

This was the room. The one where she'd first woken up more than a week ago, stuffed in a metal crate and already panicking. She could tell because there was a twisted scrap of soldered wire caging lying forgotten on the floor, jagged where it had sheared off under Max's grip the first time she tried to break out of here. Wherever here was.

_For one long second, no one had moved._

_Max's chest was heaved with her harsh breaths, amplified in the otherwise quiet room. One of the tech's eyes took a quick, sweeping drop down Max's body and she was made acutely aware that she had very little on in the way of clothing. She glanced at the window, inhaling the thick breeze that invaded the room, humid and salty and cooling the embarrassed flush that bloomed across her basically-naked chest. How many steps until she was carried away on that breeze?_

The dull slam of a door made her breathing quicken. Slow, measured footsteps came towards her, and then someone toed the edge of her crate. Her elbow bumped the side again and she gagged at the shock of pain, sprawling wearily across the floor. A palm came to rest on the top edge with a soft scuff. The light shifted as the man in the suit peered inside. The man in charge.

_She'd barely finished the thought when Mr. Chief Yelling Officer hotshot in his navy suit spoke. _

"_I can see what you are considering, Maximum." His voice was low &amp; measured, his English only slightly affected. He tugged sharply on the hem of his jacket, snapping out the wrinkles. He arched an eyebrow, voice dripping with condescension. "I can assure you that you will regret that course of action."_

_Her reaction was pure, circumstantially-bred reflex. "The hell I will," she'd snarled, all venom and bared teeth, and darted forward to grab up a fistful of papers. She flung them up in the scientists' faces and made a frantic break for the window._

She stared at him dumbly through the wire grid of the door, tongue thick in her mouth and still bleeding a little, her shallow panting, the only evidence of her anxiety. He still wore the same suit, she noticed. His eyes were hard, appraising, and he pushed two fingers inside to stroke the top ridge of her wing. She tried to yank it in, out of reach, but the movement was clumsy and small.

"What is it that makes you tick? What secrets to the genome does your body hold?"

Max tried to twist her face into a sneer and drawled, "Your mom holds genome secrets." Except it didn't actually come out sounding like words, and she realized belatedly that it was a pretty crappy comeback in the first place.

The man tisked her softly, shifting in his crouch and moving to stand. "Don't worry, Little Bird. You won't be alone for long. We've already begun the program, and soon, the males will be delivered. "

The males? Her sluggish thoughts fought to latch onto images of blue eyes, watching her, finding her, showing her Fang. Her heartbeat quickened as it occurred to her that she had no idea where the rest of her family was, or whether they'd been captured, too. She was desperate for Fang, for all of them, but she'd suffer here alone in a heartbeat if it meant keeping her family safe.

There was a sharp knock and the sound of the door as someone else came in. Max struggled to get her hazy eyes to focus as the man in the suit straightened, knees emitting a volley of pops, and addressed whoever was at the door in not-English. All she could see were the wrinkled backs of his knees, but then he stepped aside and there was a guy in a white coat kneeling in front of her crate to pull the door open. Max blinked back at him upside down, trying to keep her tired eyes from crossing. She moaned pitifully when he took her by the shoulders and dragged her closer. He took the opportunity to slip something into her mouth, something small and hard and bitter. He actually had the nerve to pinch her nose and palm her mouth shut, stroking her throat with his thumb like she was a goddamn cat or something. She fought to shift the pill under her tongue so she could fake a swallow. Whatever it was, sedative or whatever else, she abso-freaking-lutely did not want it in her body.

The lab tech turned to the man in the suit, uttering something in hushed tones. Suit-man's response was short, punctuated by the squeaking of his shoes as he left the room, leaving the tech to finish dealing with Max.

Pill safely under-tongue, she gulped frantically, desperate for the tech to let her face go so she could breath. Little spots flickered in her vision when he finally took his hands away. She glared at him as best she could through the tears pricking her eyes, glad when he drew back to refasten the door to the crate. He disappeared from sight, his shadow rotating across her body as he moved around the crate, and then his footsteps carried him away and out into the hallway. The door had barely fallen shut behind him when Max turned her head, sticking out her tongue as far as she could and scraping the bottom across her teeth to get the little pill off. It was small and white and soggy with saliva.

She was still completely out of it from the last dose of whatever-the-hell that was. Her limbs were filled with cotton and she couldn't feel her cheeks. She didn't want to be sedated. She _couldn't_ be sedated if she was going to come up with a new escape plan, including the potential rescue of her family. Not when her last campaign for freedom had gone so, so wrong.

_The papers had flown everywhere, tumbling through the air on the breeze from the window and rocking crazily as they drifted to the floor. Max lunged for the windowsill and scrambled up onto the filing cabinet and she was there, gripping the frame with both hands and shoving herself through the narrow opening, head, shoulders, wings. There was a shout from behind and someone made a grab for her ankle, but she was already more out than in._

_Gleefully, she pushed off the window frame with her heels, throwing herself into fresh, open air. Her heart beat wildly in her chest, _freedom, freedom, freedom.

_But when she flapped her wings, the air slipped through them like water through a sieve. She was falling, hard and fast, out of control, tumbling head over heels. She barely had time to open her mouth in a scream before she hit the pavement hard, harder than she'd ever fallen. She heard the crunch more than she felt it, but then she was screaming because she couldn't move her arm and for the first time in her life her wings, her beautiful, tawny wings, had failed her._

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**A/N: In case you missed it, the straight text was 'present': Max's current-in-the-story-timeline reality; and the italicized portions were in the 'past': remembering her most recent escape attempt. I worked hard, with KLoves2Read's help, to write each section in a way that made it clear using not just italicization but also some shifts in tense and attention to situational urgency through language... but I wanted to go ahead and say it, anyway! Just in case I didn't quite make it. (And if I didn't, what could I have done better, short of throwing titles on every jump?)**

I'm also surprised (happy surprised!) at the wonderful reception my last chapter received. Maybe it was just my misguided attempt at editing while half-asleep, but I felt really 'blah' about it when it went up. I'm thrilled that you guys liked it!

**Nola96: **Leaving you with an "agonizing cliffy" feels like a victory point for me! I have a few more good cliffhangers up my sleeve before the story's out.

**Lustrex: **Side by side reviews are awesome, oh my gosh. I'm excited that my chapters have been exciting enough to warrant side-by-sides! It's like the abridged, written version of those "Demographic Group Reacts to: Weird 80's Gadgets" type videos on YouTube. And coming up with the boundaries and limitations to their powers (Fang &amp; Dylan) was one of the fun challenges for this story. I wanted to use the crazy weird crap JP wrote in, but I wanted to be able to _use_ it, not just mention it or abuse it as a deus ex machina-type device by accidentally making them omnipotent or something. Using the limitations is almost as fun as using the powers themselves.

**WithoutWings: **Good questions! Things will be revealed. The things that you are wondering about will all be touched upon, at one point or another, promise. I completely agree about the different modified villains in the books, too. There were at least three different versions of Erasers, I think, plus the M-Geeks, and maybe something else that I can't remember? Besides the wild grab-bag of sleazeball human (or part tortoise) bad guys.

**Max is back: **Just keep reading, the fax is coming! Now that Fang and Dylan know where Max is, they can go get her!

**KLoves2Read: **That fight scene was so fun to write. Why can't all chapters be fight scenes? Also, yes, Marty's verbal-flaying of Miss Yume's name was new.

**What's wrong with Max's wings?**

And, as we look ahead, **what are you anticipating the most about Max &amp; Fang's reunion?**

and also, **how do you think Dylan will handle being around the reunited couple?**


	28. Chapter 27 - Escape to Gunkanjima

**Author's Note: **Thank you to the lovely **KLoves2Read** her her beta-reading talent, and to **Lustrex** for telling me many reviews ago to watch my POV flops and inspiring some serious rewriting for this poor chapter.

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**CHAPTER 27 - ESCAPE TO GUNKANJIMA**

_Previously_

"_Islands! Fang, she said Genitex has been buying _islands_!" He ran his hands over his head until his hair stood on end. "I've been looking over the mainland this whole time!" His breaths came in shallow as his eyes darted frantically around the room. His gaze settled on one of the walls and his whole body tensed._

_Fang had the grate unscrewed and lying on the desk when Dylan's face went ashen, good eye glazing over even as the other swelled shut._

"_Oh...Oh, no..."_

_Dylan's hissed words made Fang run cold._

"_I found her."_

_. . . . . . . . . _

There was a moment, just then, where everything felt infinite. The distance separating Fang from Max; the time he'd spent searching; the breath he held in his lungs as if they had turned to stone. Dust motes and tufts of fur swam lazily in front of the backdrop of blood and bodies.

Then it all crashed down. His world imploded, his lungs ballooned, and he was _so close_ to her that he could feel his soul melting and reaching out to her across time and space. The urgency was like an iron fist around his heart.

He launched himself up into the vent tunnel, yanking his legs inside and crawling on his elbows fast enough to make his skin catch and burn. He was relieved to hear Dylan slide in behind him a second later, echoing in the aluminum tunnel. He called back lowly, "Is she close?"

"Just off the coast. Ten, twenty minute flight at the-" Dylan sucked in a breath and wrapped his fingers around Fang's ankle, pulling him to a halt.

Fang twisted to look over his shoulder at Dylan, who was Staring worriedly through the aluminum sheeting beneath him.

"Robots," he whispered, barely audible. "Like 300 of them. Yume's in that room that was closed off, messing with some sort of panel..." His whisper grew strained, laced with urgency that made Fang's mouth go dry. "We have to _move._" He released Fang and pushed frantically against the soles of his shoes. "MOVE!"

"Grab my ankle," Fang hissed, reaching back to bunch his pant leg up to his knee and shoving his sock down with his thumb. As soon as Dylan's cold fingers grasped the exposed skin, the vent shaft was plunged into eerie silence. Fang had pulled them into that tiny tear in the atmosphere where they were Imperceptible, hidden from the eyes and ears of the enemy. The metal sheeting rippled soundlessly beneath invisible knees as they barreled clumsily forward. Fang hardly noticed Dylan's short fingernails digging into his skin. He was laser-focused, following the faint currents of fresh air through the shaft system until they rounded a corner and his shoulders pressed against the exterior vent. He slammed into it bodily until the screws torqued and the metal rent jaggedly with a scraping screech.

Fang fell headfirst from the side of the building. He landed roughly on the pavement ten feet below. Dylan, still attached to his ankle, dropped in a heap on top of him. The area was mercifully empty, but when Dylan let go of Fang to roll off of him, his eyes were wide and fixed on the building.

"They're coming!"

"We won't be here." Fang stood up and made a grab for Dylan. He hauled him up by his wrist and tightened his grip, bracing them together. He unfurled his wings, big and dark and powerful, and they vanished before the down stroke.

Dylan was flapping frantically beneath him, knocking Fang's wings with his own before finding a rhythm as he was dragged upward. Fang glanced down, ignoring the familiar twist in his stomach as he saw right through his body to the building below. He could hear into the heart of the building via the open air vent; could hear the smooth, rhythmic clicking of metal on metal; and then an airy wail from Yume that stuttered and then grew into an echoing, snarling shout.

She'd found the dead Erasers.

Below them, a door was flung open and smooth metal flashed as titanium mercenaries poured out, raising featureless faces up toward the sky. It was an actual robot army, like something out of a low budget SyFy series or a bad science fiction novel. All smooth curves and exposed joints with weaponized limbs. A dark strip spanned their smooth egg heads at eye level.

Fang really, really hoped his power hid them from robot-vision.

He pushed against the sky, straining to get them as high as possible so that he could let go of Dylan without worrying about being seen. The robots moved jerkily, but they moved together. Fang wasn't about to bet against the accuracy of their weaponry.

They were at least 4,000 feet overhead when Fang reappeared and released Dylan from his death grip. It was high enough that they would have looked like tiny black specs against the clouds to anyone below, if they were even spotted in the first place. He scanned the ground, homing in on the robots and taking his first real breath in minutes when none of the weapons fired. None of them were even looking in the right direction.

Danger aside for now, his head swiveled toward a green-tinged Dylan. He called ahead, straining over the rush of the wind, over the pounding of his heart, "How far?"

"Just a couple of miles," Dylan yelled back, angling his wings toward the coast and sprinting ahead.

Fang surged forward after him, squinting into the wind, watching Dylan's sandy blonde hair whip around his head like it was a living thing.

"She's alone in a crate. She's alive, but she doesn't look good, man."

"Do you see a way in?"

"There's an open window, same floor," Dylan called, rocking from side to side with the force of each wing stroke. "Just one guy in there, no trouble – but Max's room is guarded and the place is full – whitecoats, Erasers, some outside with guns-"

"We'll draw them out," Fang interrupted, "make a diversion."

Dylan paused before nodding. "That could work."

"We've done it before." Granted, the last time, Gazzy had bombs in his hoodie pocket and the whole flock was involved, but the idea was simple enough. Fang coughed roughly, vocal chords tight from the air and the cold and the volume. "We'll distract them. I'll go after one of the Erasers outside, get their attention. You go in through the window and take out the guy. I'll go Imperceptible and meet you there."

Dylan nodded and barreled ahead. Fang was right on his heels, working furiously to pour on the speed. Dylan's wings were broader, faster, moving more air, and Fang found himself riding in Dylan's slipstream as they sped along above the coast.

"I think they know," Dylan called over his shoulder, "about us. There's a couple Erasers outside Max's room, and more moving outside. They know we're coming."

_Yume._ The way she yelled when she found them missing, probably half of Japan knew. They needed to be higher, high enough that there was no chance they'd be spotted. "They'll be watching for us. C'mon." Fang's arms flew out in front of him as he angled up, climbing higher and higher with Dylan on his tail. High enough that the ocean was a featureless glass beneath them. High enough to disappear in the clouds. He passed into a warm column of air and bowed his wings, letting the rising thermal fill them and lift him effortlessly. He and Dylan soared weightlessly on borrowed power. In seconds, they sprung up over a group of fluffy whites and powered ahead, Dylan in the lead again.

He pulled back long before Fang saw anything, wheeling around in a big, looping arc above a towering nimbus. Fang sailed past, taking a hairpin turn and falling opposite Dylan in small gliding circles, close enough that he could reach out and grab Dylan by the foot.

Dylan pointed down through the cloud, speaking normally now that they'd slowed. "It's right down there."

Fang eyed the billowing white below them. "You sure?"

"Positive," Dylan said, nodding definitively.

"Okay. And the window?"

"North end," Dylan replied. "It's the only one that's open, you can't miss it."

"Awesome. Don't go until you're sure they won't see you." Fang thwapped the back of his hand against Dylan's shoe twice and tipped forward, streamlining his body and pulling his Imperceptibility back on as he plummeted through the cloud. Tendrils of mist trailed behind him as he punched through the bottom. He took in the little island: maybe a hundred and fifty yards across and twice as long. Decorated with ruins and crumbling stone. Then the gleaming concrete courtyard and a state-of-the-art facility that took up a third of the island, butting right up against the sea wall on one side.

He zeroed in on one of the outside guards. One of the Erasers. His victim stood distracted on the pavement, in view of the front doors. He was busy fiddling with the settings on the semi-automatic in its claws. Its back was hunched in a way that couldn't be comfortable as it hung out somewhere between man and wolf. There were a few other guards close enough to see, but not close enough to help right away if a Bird Man dropped out of the sky.

There was a split second where he thought he caught sight of the open window - less fly-right-through and more pretend-you're-Spiderman-and-wriggle-inside - but then he was close enough to his target to swing his legs out beneath him, falling back into visibility with just twenty yards to go. He gave a mighty battle cry as the soles of his shoes slammed into the Eraser's shoulders from behind, sending the thing face-first into the pavement.

It didn't move. Fang hovered over the prone form, toeing its ribs with one foot. That was less dramatic than he'd hoped.

But then he heard the crackle of a walkie talkie just yards away. Something on the Eraser's hip beeped. Fang jerked his head up and saw another guard, a human, frozen in place and frantically fumbling with the radio. Fang dropped into a crouch. He stretched his wings to their full length and pulling his face into an unholy grin. There was a shout around the corner of the building and then a phalanx of five tore into the courtyard, slinging guns on their hips. They rushed for Fang.

He was up in a flash, turning and sprinting through the courtyard. His palm slapped an Eraser's shoulder as he bolted past, flirting with death and working hard to draw the attention of every guard. He heard the click of a weapon readying behind him and spread his wings, pumping twice before leaping into the air and vanishing before their very eyes. There was a second of silence and another second of frenzied fire, but Fang was already wheeling around to the north side of the building to the open window.

This kind of thing was always easier said than done. He twisted until his feet were running against the side of the building, wings out and dragging and slowing him down enough that he could wrap his fingers around the windowsill when he reached it. His momentum swung him around and slammed him into the side of the building, shoulders screaming with the effort of holding on. He let out a stuttering moan and pulled his chest up onto the sill, rocking his shoulders to wiggle the rest of the way in.

He grinned anyway when he saw Dylan, kneeling over a scrawny guy in a white coat with acne pock-marked across his face. Dylan gave a violent start when Fang reappeared, hopping down from the filing cabinets and walking towards him. His grin faded when he saw the tightness around Dylan's eyes.

"Whitecoat give you a hard time?"

Dylan shook his head. "It's her. Max. After Looking for her all week, making myself 'tune in' to her or whatever, I just..." He let out a shuddering sigh and pulled his hands through his hair, grabbing the skin on his cheeks and looking up at the ceiling. He let go after a second, standing up and hauling the whitecoat with him. "It's fine. I'm fine. I can do this. Let's go."

Fang watched him for a second, not really sure what to do with that, but not sure how to help, either. Really, there wasn't anything he _could_ do about it.

Dylan heaved the unconscious whitecoat up a little higher, securing one limp arm around his shoulders and balancing the body against his side. "This guy's our key."

Fang hummed and went ahead, threading through the cluttered lab desks, feet crinkling over papers that littered the entire floor. He paused at the door and asked, "Are we good to go?"

Dylan nodded, bending to pull the whitecoat across his shoulders. He stood up with a groan and led the way out the door. "It was a good distraction."

They stopped in front of a door all the way down the hall. Dylan stooped so Fang could grab the whitecoat's hand to wave it in front of the scanner by the door. There was one mind-numbing second in which nothing happened, but then a light glowed green and something inside the door clicked. Dylan dropped the whitecoat unceremoniously. Fang grabbed the door handle and pulled, heart pounding so hard that he could feel it in his fingertips, hot against the cool metal of the handle.

The door opened to a brightly lit, bare room. The only thing inside was a large plastic crate, lying crooked in the middle of the room. The soft rattle of sleep breathing drifted out of the oval vents along the top. Fang almost looked back at Dylan, standing behind him, but he couldn't tear his eyes off the crate.

"That's her?"

"Yep," Dylan whispered gruffly. "Yeah, that's Max."

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**A/N:** **There aren't very many good verbs for someone becoming invisible willfully. There just aren't. It's something I've fought with any time Fang's power comes up in the story; how to describe it without sounding like a fifty-cent comic book. Why is "going invisible" the most prevalent thing out there? It sounds kinda dumb. But "slip into invisibility" sounds pretentious, or like misguided seduction, like, "Why don't you..._slip into_ some invisibility and join me in the lounge?" What even? I've been trying to use more active verbs for Fang's power, like pushing or pulling or gripping or holding onto it, since it takes effort on his part to maintain the illusion. Do you guys have any fantastic verbs for using invisibility?**

**Also, if you're curious, I put the evil lab on a real island. Hashima Island, unofficially called Gunkanjima (Battleship Island), is an abandoned undersea coal mining town. No one's lived there for at least forty years, so it's conceivable that Genitex bought this (along with other abandoned islands) to get some under-the-table research done without anyone prying too much. The island is just off the coast of the Nagasaki Peninsula, about the size of two or three football fields, and if you plug "Hashima Island" into Google, you can look at it on satellite view. The surrounding area comes into play a little bit over the next few chapters. **

**Lustrex: **You're right, that was such a short chapter! Because the information Max gives us is so limited, because she is so static, it's a challenge to draw them out. I'm learning to let some chapters (like the Max ones) stay small to emphasize the emotional impact. And I'd had a few ideas to extend the trope's prevalence, but they were all sincerely dark and anyway, that's not meant to be the focus of the story. It does get addressed in the final chapter, but it's not as important as the things that happen between Fang &amp; Dylan. And yes, the reunion will be SO bittersweet!

**Nola96: **Aw, haha, well this is not a story for steamy reunion relations, sorry. You'll see when it comes, but their circumstances will make it hard to focus on anything but immediate danger. Plus, they're both wounded and ragged and bloody at this point. Sex is the last thing on their brains. BUT it will be clingy and needy and tender and protective. All of those things. You know how I do Fax.

**j4bb3rwocky: **Thanks for your notes on the past three chapters. You've given me several good things to think about for when I go back and polish everything up, so thank you for that. You've got a couple of interesting theories for how the endgame might play out. I will simply sit and smile at them and then post what I have anyway. I hope what follows somehow manages to exceed your expectations.

**WithoutWings: **Yes, Flyboys! That's it. Erasers, mechanical erasers, winged erasers, flyboys (mechanical winged erasers?), M-Geeks... and the Flock. So much to keep track of. I have this on-going project that I update whenever I'm researching canon for continuity with my stories, where I try to record a timeline in the books of what happens in which order and where characters get introduced, or major character traits. There's just so much material, and it's not always consistent, and it's often repetitious, and that makes it hard to keep track of which villain group they're fighting this time. Anyway, I'm glad you figured out the point of the flashbacking in the last chapter. It's meant to simulate the feeling of drifting in and out, which Max is doing with all those drugs in her system, and while some people maybe didn't _enjoy_ the effect, it at least functioned the way it was supposed to.

**thestupidgenius1123: **Girl, lookit you go. You are so busy, and yet you still make the time to come and review literally six chapters in a row. I originally HAD written in a time skip between the GH fight and the hospital scene. But I couldn't figure out how to hint at it in a way that felt believable, and I needed some time to pass between events in the story, so I just went for it. I'm glad you think it worked. And Fang's breakdown was seriously one of my favorites to write. He's been building, building, building, and mostly suppressing, towards this emotional outburst. Let's be honest, he's already at the end of his rope when he's greeting the flock in the hospital, with his defenses all broken down, and then Val gets that fax and BOOM! Cathartic release. And then it's done, and he can move on to actually rescuing Max.

**KLoves2Read: **I'm glad the new version of the chapter was clearer! I seriously loved the notes you gave me for that one, they really helped make everything shine.


	29. Chapter 28 - Seven Seconds

**Author's Note: **Thank you,** KLoves2Read**, for your beta reading help.

This one... I'm happy to talk about it via PM if anyone feels so inclined. For the record, the events of this chapter were in the cards from the beginning. **Next chapter in two days.**

_Content Warning: Graphic Violence_

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**CHAPTER 28 – SEVEN SECONDS**

Fang rushed into the room the moment he regained control of his limbs. He fell to his knees in front of the large plastic dog crate, pushing his fingers through the wire door and peered inside.

"She's...she's breathing, right?" Dylan stood in the doorway, shifting nervously with one toe keeping the door from falling shut. His eyes were fixed on the hallway.

"Yeah," Fang breathed, eyes drinking in the dark form huddled at the far end of the crate. "Yeah." His fingers found the flimsy spring closure and then it was open and he was leaning inside with outstretched arms, wings arched and reshuffling anxiously. She moaned when his hands found her, palms running along her crushed wings, and when he gripped her shoulders to pull her from the dark she let out a pitiful whimper.

"I've gotchu, I've gotchu, babe...c'mon..."

He pulled her out of the crate and into his lap, releasing her swollen right arm when he saw the tight binding. The skin around it was purpling and shiny. His fingers ghosted across her ribs where they were already visible, uncovered as she was in her dirty bedclothes, hair matted on one side. Her closed eyes fluttered and then opened a crack, blinking dully before settling shakily Fang's forehead.

"You? You're..." Her eyes shifted unsteadily and she caught sight of Dylan. Her breathing picked up and her glassy eyes found Fangs. "S'not safe," she managed. She shifted in an attempt to sit up but rolled over onto her hurt arm. She cried out and curled in on herself, huddling against Fang's stomach.

Fang bent across her to shove at the crate, trying to free Max's gangly legs without letting her go. He couldn't let her go.

"We can't stay," Dylan hissed, fingertips white where he gripped the door handle. He was alternating between watching the reunion and taking darting glances out into the hallway, feathers bristling wildly.

"Gotta go," Max echoed, humid breath spreading through Fang's shirt where her face was still pressed to his stomach. "The Flock?"

"They're at home. Safe." Fang turned to Dylan and implored, "Help me."

He was there in an instant, delicately pulling the carrier away from Max, freeing her enough that Fang could gather her up into his arms and get to his feet.

"Ikin' walk," Max drawled, awake enough now to push against Fang's chest in protest. "Just...gimme a sec."

"We've gotta hurry," Dylan warned, still crouched, balanced with one hand on the top of the crate. Fang nodded, tightening his grip on the body curled in his arms and turning toward the door.

"The pill," Max went on, one hand flopping to point in the general direction of the crate. "I di'n't...I spit it out...lemme walk, dammit."

Dylan glanced inside the crate and then stood, a small white tablet pinched between his fingers.

"Dormosedan?" Fang asked, but Dylan shook his head.

"No, it's something else. Not as powerful." He eyed Max, assessing her as she blinked rapidly, trying to focus. "Can she even stand? We need to hurry."

"Ya said that," Max grumbled, wiggling out of Fang's arms.

"Are we going back the way we came?" Fang gently helped Max to stand, keeping her upper body hugged tightly to him as he lowered her legs to the floor.

Dylan moved past them to poke his head out the door, listening carefully. He ducked back in and nodded. "We should be able to get back to the window quick enough. We'll try to make a run for it."

Fang dipped his head to look at Max. Her face was twisted in a downcast scowl as she gripped Fang's shirt, shifting tentatively on her legs. "Want help?"

"I goddit. Really."

Fang frowned, glancing at Dylan, but the other man had his attention on the hallway again.

"Just a second," Dylan whispered, easing the door shut. "There's a lab tech in the next hall. He's going the other way, though."

Fang turned back to Max, giving her hands a squeeze as she finally released him. "There's an empty lab a few doors down with an open window. I'll help you through first; just get in the air, we'll come after you."

Max stiffened. "I can't-"

"It's okay." He pressed his lips to her forehead, lingering for a moment and letting the frizzed wisps at her hairline tickle his nose. "I'll be right behind you."

Max shook her head frantically, glassy eyes wide. "No, Fang, they-"

"Now!" Dylan hissed. He slipped through the door, Fang right behind with Max's hand clutched in his. Their footsteps slapped on the tile as they ran down the hall, Max stumbling a little and making Fang's heart race. He tightened his grip on her, fingers pressing desperately into her wrist. Someone shouted somewhere behind.

The door to freedom was only ten paces ahead, door slightly ajar. Had they really left it open?

Dylan skidded to a halt, heels scraping the linoleum, already twisting in a new direction. Fang slammed into him with a gush of breath and Dylan turned right, sprinting down the next hall. Max stumbled to a stop and cried out in surprise when Fang jerked her along, pulling her good arm until her strides quickened to match his.

The lab door burst open wide behind them and guttural snarls tore from dribbling maws of the three Erasers that bounded after them. A man in a navy suit followed, turning scarlet with rage, furious shouts echoing down the corridor.

"Erasers!" Fang called ahead.

Dylan took a sharp left, slamming through a door marked as a stair entrance just as more Erasers appeared at the other end of the hall. "No one's on the roof!"

"Wait!" Max's cry cut off when Fang pulled her into the unlit stairwell. The door fell shut behind them, only to swing open with a resounding crack against the cinderblock wall. They took the steps three at a time, feathers lifting, ready to fly. The now fully-morphed Erasers snapped at their heels, eyes glowing red under the emergency lights.

One level. Two levels. Three levels. Fang was suffocating without sky. Max's hand was yanked away and his chest tightened with raw fear. One of the Erasers yelped, tripping on the steps and falling back into the rest of the pack, and then he felt Max tap his shoulder three times, _Right behind you_.

"Get in the air!" Dylan yelled as his shoulder connected with the exit door, shoving it open and flooding the dark stairs with blinding sunlight. Fang stumbled out after him, Max's hand flying to his shoulders.

Dylan's surprised shout pierced him before he got rid of the spots in his vision. He stumbled forward a few steps and walked right into something cold, hard, with protruding curves. Fang's arm flew up to shield him from the sun and his forearm collided with something smooth and round at chest level, knocking the thing off balance. It groaned and clattered and collapsed into a heap at his feet.

The three of them looked down at the robot, panting heavily. Fang chuckled crazily and swept his hand through his hair. "They're not turned on." They were standing at the edge of a motionless robot army, probably a hundred of them, all smooth, sweeping angles and glinting sunlight.

"Not yet," Dylan said darkly. He turned back and took the doorknob in both hands, grunting and tugging until it sheared off. "That can't hurt," he muttered, eyeing the jagged metal stump appreciatively.

Fang jumped when the robot at his feet made a soft whirring noise.

"Oh, shit."

The black infrared reader across its upturned face glowed red and then focused into a pinprick red eye. It danced crazily before focusing on Fang.

Dylan looked up when another whirring noise started nearby, and then another, and another, and then the broken door behind them groaned as something slammed into it on the other side.

"The edge!" Fang yelled, weaving quickly through the ranks, Max behind him, Dylan in the rear.

"Fang!"

Fang yelled back breathlessly, "Get in the air!"

He broke through the last row of robots before the whirring had stopped. He sprinted the final few yards to the flimsy handrail at the edge of the roof, braced one hand on the round steel, and vaulted up and over. The sea was immediately below him, miles of sky ahead, the low green mountains of Japan's mainland on the near horizon. His great black wings pumped once, twice, three times, straining to move huge scoops of air and climbing faster than he ever thought he could. His body fizzled with elation when he caught an updraft, letting himself be carried up and up until the only sound was the wind.

The wind itself pulled his laugh from his lungs and he whipped around to share it with Max and Dylan, but there was only sky. He spun again, heart in his throat, nose over his shoulder, wingtips curling around him, clouds and blinding sun and a seagull just above.

He was alone with the wind.

"Faaaaaaang!"

Max's terrified scream was faint, barely cutting past the wind in his ears, but it lanced through his heart like ice.

She was still on the roof.

He was already a few hundred yards above them, but he'd been in the air fewer than ten seconds. How long to get back down?

_One...  
_Fang searched frantically below. The door to the roof crushed outward, revealing two snarling Erasers jammed shoulder to shoulder in the narrow frame. Dylan was struggling at the edge of the robot army where one had caught him by the arm, wiry fingers encircling his bicep tightly. And there was Max, wings half folded and bracing herself against the railing at the roof's edge on her toes, watching Fang with a mask of terror as he pivoted mid-stroke, angling towards the rooftop and diving down, down, down.

Why wasn't she flying?

_Two...  
__Three hundred yards to go  
_The Erasers tumbled out of the door as more shoved past, tearing through the robot army and leaving trenches of fallen bots in their wake like dominoes. Fang pulled his wings in tighter, careening towards the roof with increasing speed. Dylan cried out as another bot grabbed his other arm. Max turned and he saw that her wings _were_ outstretched. Primary feathers reduced to choppy stubs.

They'd clipped her.

She was grounded.

_Three...  
__Two hundred yards to go  
_Fang flung his arms over his face, eyes burning as the wind sliced past, faster and faster. The Erasers were upon Dylan now and he struggled wildly, lashing out with the bony ridges of his wings to punch their soft noses, making them cower. Max was suddenly sprinting towards him, bum arm dangling and the other curled into a fist, and Fang yelled into the silencing wind.

"I got it!"

_Four...  
__One hundred yards away  
__Save Dylan save Max save Dylan save Max..._

There was a sickening crackle like crushed ice as one of the bots took hold of Dylan's left wing at the base, shattering the hollow bones and pulling it from his body with a wet rip. Tore it clean off.

Max screamed, faltering in her step as she watched the wing hit the cement, crumpled like a used towel.

"Run!" Dylan bellowed, eyes wide and wild, single wing flapping frantically, Erasers upon him again. Max turned, took three steps, and stumbled, tearing up her hands and knees on the rough cement.

_Five...  
_Fang opened his wings, swinging his feet forward and yelling under the strain of trying to slow from his bone-shattering speed. He aimed his heels for the head of the Eraser at Dylan's back, but the desperation in Dylan's eyes was not for himself.

"Save her!"

They were both grounded now, and Dylan understood.

Fang couldn't carry them both.

_Six...  
_One Eraser howled as Dylan jabbed it in the eye. Fang's wings strained impossibly as he sailed over the roof's edge and made a hairpin turn, towards Max, away from Dylan's scream as the Eraser dug its claws into his side. There was a sick pop at Fang's shoulder and a shooting pain as his right wing collapsed and folded backward. He collided with Max, legs folding into the concrete, his momentum dragging them, breathless, in a tumbling roll beneath the railing and off the edge.

Dylan screamed, guttural and terrified.

A wet tear, a series of cracks, and it was silenced.

_Seven...  
_Fang's eyes found Dylan's at the last moment before he fell, frozen in time, curled around Max. Dylan's face was taught with pain, mouth wide from his deadened scream. An Eraser's claws had torn from his sternum to his hip, cracking ribs, shredding lung, opening abdomen, insides spilling. He had collapsed, gagging, still held aloft by the spindly wire fingers gripping his arms. Fang watched Dylan blink once, going glassy-eyed before the light went out behind them.

An Eraser lunged, dripping jaws closing over Dylan's neck and mouth with a terrifying crunch.

Fang fell out of sight, Max clutching him tightly, down to the sea below.

They plunged into water like ice.

Dylan was dead.

.

.

.

.

.

.

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	30. Chapter 29 - Mourning Reunion

**Author's Note: **Oh my gosh, you guys, the response to the last chapter was amazing. I was kind of terrified when I posted it...because once it's out there, it can't come back. But you took it and you allowed yourselves to _feel_ something about it, and I'm so humbled that my words did that. Dylan's death became a Much Bigger Thing than I had thought it would when I initially planned the story, but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Judging by the reviews, I accomplished my goal of getting you to care about Dylan. Not an easy task in the MR fandom.

Thanks to **KLoves2Read** for her guidance with this beast of a chapter! Max &amp; Fang are not out of the woods yet, but you'll see them pause to grieve and to be Max &amp; Fang. Read on, and review.

* * *

**CHAPTER 28 – MOURNING REUNION**

_Dead_

_Dead dead dead dead dead_

The icy water burned. Salt invaded his mouth. Filled his ears. Flooded his nose, rushing up into his sinuses to make his head feel bigger than the universe.

He'd actually seen the light in Dylan's eyes go out. Seen the last breath leave his lips.

Smelled the blood.

Something was touching his face, stroking his neck, warmer than the ocean he floated in. It pressed against the corners of his eyelids, urging them to open, but he was too overcome. Images of Dylan with his insides on the outside flashed through his mind, over and over, the ragged scream on repeat in his memory's ear. The way it gurgled a little and then cut off like a book slamming shut. A book with bones that crunched between Eraser jaws.

He was sick. He needed to purge something before he shorted out.

And then the something warm that had been at his neck pressed against his lips, points of pressure reshaping his face before moving to grip the back of his neck. Something warm and _soft _covered his mouth. When he opened his eyes in the stinging water, Max's still-puckered lips were _right _there. Her hair made an ethereal halo in the current, her skin washed blue. She was kicking like a frog, hands swiveling back and forth as she held herself in front of him.

Her lips parted and he wanted to drown in them. No, he _was_ drowning! His lungs burned for air that he couldn't reach. His limbs jerked to life. Max's lips parted again, tiny bubbles escaping, her fingers stroking his neck insistently, but he couldn't _breathe._

He kicked hard, aiming up toward the fading sunlight at the water's surface. A sharp pain in his hip, muscles all tangled, brought him up short. Just in time. A spray of bullets, orange with the setting sun, drew a wide arc of bubbles too close.

They weren't safe yet.

Max grabbed his wrist and pulled him back down, deeper and deeper into the dark. She looked at him with wide eyes, glistening dark in the depths, and her hands flew to touch his neck and hers. Her lips parted again, drawing across her teeth and pushing her cheeks up into her eyes for a second before they relaxed and her tongue tapped the back of her teeth, and all at once Fang understood the word:

_Gills. They had gills. He'd forgotten._

He gulped frantically, rolling his tongue in a half-swallow to push water through the tiny slits that parted just under his ears. The fluttering sensation wasn't anything like breathing air. His chest still burned with need. But the heady panic of impending death dissipated as he took salty mouthfuls of water and passed it through the sticky frills he had forgotten even existed.

He stopped struggling against Max's hold. Her face softened with relief and her hand constricted tightly in his and then she was tugging him through the water, away from the lab.

Her clipped feathers, useless in air, carved through the water beautifully. They were propelled along beneath the waves in staccato bursts, pulling and pushing through the water. They stalled to a floating stop as a motorboat passed overhead, murky silhouettes peering down into the water, the sound dull and wide through water-filled ears, but it sped on towards the open sea.

Fang tried to look around. He couldn't see anything but blue. They were heading for land, right? The water was thick and darkening as the sun sank. The need to break the surface, to see where he was going, was overwhelming. He tugged Max to a stop, ignoring the fierce cramp in his hip and maneuvering in front of her to gesture overhead. She turned to look at the retreating bottom of the boat, already a few hundred yards away, before nodding to Fang and pulling him up to the surface.

They broke through the waves with frenzied coughs, making the awkward transition from gills back to lungs with more than a little water inhaled.

"We have to get to the mainland," Max rasped. A swell tugged her away and she reached for Fang with a cry, locking her hand around his. Her fingers dug sharply into the gauze around his burn.

"I know." It was all he could get out before the sputtering growl of another motor reached them from across the water. There were two more boats leaving the dock, for a total of three, loaded with Erasers and speeding to cut off access to the mainland. The first one was already circling back.

Fang spun in the water, droplets flying from his hair. There was another stab of pain, this time from his right wing as it wavered in the water behind him. It felt dislocated. Maybe worse. He focused instead on a tall island, rocky face burning pink with the dying day, sparse tree cover on the top, water lapping over the short beach. It was closer than the mainland and was out of the path of the motorboats.

"We can make it," he sputtered, pointing.

Max looked from the rock jutting out of the water to the mainland, blanching at the patrol speeding through the channel and arcing towards the spot where they were treading water. A wave rolled over her head and she nodded, spluttering.

They descended again. Fang gulped water diligently, shutting down the part of his brain that still screamed the need for air in his lungs. Max tugged him along with broad strokes of her wings. He tried again to help, with his good wing, but pushed them off course in three powerful strokes and gave up.

Each minute they swam felt like ages. Fang waited for one of the boats to stop overhead, to discover them, to haul them back.

But they weren't caught by the patrol. They were caught up in the surf as they neared the island, pushed out of control towards large submerged rocks at the foot of the beach. The danger hadn't been visible from further out, but now it loomed ahead, jagged and dark with pale flashes of surf dipping and churning above.

A swirling swell ripped Max's hand from Fang's and dragged her from him. He slammed into a rock on hands and knees, scrambling to find purchase and hauling himself above the surface on its flat top. His body was numb from the frigid water, from Dylan, from fear, but his lungs were on fire. He spat out his mouthful of water and gagged, choking on his own tongue and fighting for his first real lungful of air since he and Max had fallen off that rooftop.

Fang felt sharp panic rise in his throat and shot up on his knees.

"Max!"

He whipped around, slipping in his terror and scraping his hands on the rocks. He heard a strangled cry further down the shore and nearly tumbled back into the sea in his hurry, wounded wing flopping limply behind him, hobbling on hands and knees.

"Max!" The cry whined through chattering teeth and then he saw her, struggling against the rocks and the surf that had turned a frothy pink around her. She was straining on her palms, lower half pinned beneath the water.

"My leg...Fang, my leg," she gasped.

Fang was over her in an instant. He pulled her leg from where it was wedged, threw one arm under her knees, and peeled her off the rocks. He sucked in a deep breath and shoved his Imperceptibility over the both of them, struggling to focus, hoping he didn't have to choose between keeping his grip on his power and keeping his grip on his wife.

He felt her curl into him, her torso vibrating with unheard sound. Lurching to his feet, he clambered over the rocks, stumbling onto the gravelly beach and making for the trees at the top of the steep hill. He scaled the rocky incline on toes and knees, eyes glued to the ground before him, wading through scrubby brush that grew taller as he got higher. He scraped past twigs at chest height, pulling Max's head under his chin with one hand threaded into in her soaked hair. When the ground shifted beneath his feet, he pitched back and looked up to find he'd reached the peak. There was a steep drop-off not two steps ahead, with a thin line of gravel at the bottom that was even narrower than the tiny pebble beach on the other side.

One of the speed boats swung around, churning up the channel between them and the next island.

They were trapped on a tiny hunk of rock.

Desperation hit Fang like a Mack truck, bringing all his aches and pains with it. His heart pumped so hard that his ribs ached. His limp wing screamed at him, and the shoulder on the same side, and the burn on the opposite wrist. His left hip popped jarringly with every step. His torn ear itched. Something warm was trickling down the arm supporting Max's legs, tickling, dripping from the end of his elbow.

Sustaining his Imperceptibility was suddenly too much. It flicked in and out, leaving a stuttering trail of ragged breathing and Max's quiet cries, harsh slashes of sound ripping into the eerie silence of the little copse on the crest of the rock.

"-ang-"

He tripped back a few steps, falling against the trunk of a pine. Crumbling bark pinched at waterlogged wings through his soaked shirt. He clutched Max tighter.

"Fa-"

His knees locked, shaking, and gave out. His ass hit the ground, sinking into the carpet of pine needles and brush. His Imperceptibility finally fizzled out.

Max's ribs expanded with a sharp intake of breath. Her pained breathing seemed to flood the copse, weaving through the trees and settling on the detritus and making the leaves rattle with wind and pain. Sticky red coated her leg, running down to her toes in a thick line, mixing with the seawater and spilling dark drips on the leaves beneath them.

Fang lowered Max to the ground, arms shaking, and leaned her up against a tree. It had only been two weeks, but he could already see the gentle ridges of her ribs pressing against her skin, rippling beneath a blackened bruise that looked disturbingly like a footprint. The wrappings around her broken arm were soggy but intact. Her wrist rested on her pale chest, swollen fingers curling into the strap of her sodden sports bra. Her clipped wings, choppy and stunted and dripping with ocean, splayed low behind her.

She bit her lip and stuck her chin out when Fang took her torn leg into his lap. He swiped his thumb gently along the edge of the wound and watched the flesh pull apart. It was much deeper than he first thought.

So much blood.

His mind raced. The shirt he wore was soaked, but it was made with a woven cotton that would tear into even strips once he ripped through the hem. His unsteady hands flew to the line of buttons, exposing the black ribbed tank beneath.

Max's whole face screwed up and she tipped her head back against the tree, good arm coming up to push shaking fingers through the wet mop of her hair and tangling it around her knuckles. Her jaw worked wordlessly, one corner of her mouth twitching, and she laughed breathlessly. "After all that, and I'm incapacitated by a stupid skinned," she sucked in a breath, "skinned shin."

Fang sized up her torn leg as he fumbled with the last button. 'Skinned' was putting it lightly. Shaved ribbons trailed from the sides, red-stained white, swollen and weeping on the edges. The deepest part was still shiny milky pale. To him, it looked like seashells and microchips and maybe it wasn't self-inflicted this time but it still made the bile rise in his throat. She needed stitches, and all he had were rags.

Max caught his look. "I've had worse," she whispered, strained words belying the pain. He met her eyes and stopped unrolling his shirt sleeves. She was just so pale.

Too much blood.

He shrugged his shirt down off his shoulders, grunting in surprise when the fabric yanked on his injured wing and he felt it all the way through to his navel. He wasn't sure if he could even get it off on his own. His wing was soggy and limp and every movement sent pain lancing all the way to the tips of his feathers like embers smoldering beneath his skin.

"Is it bad?" Max whispered, watching Fang struggle with his shirt twisted up behind him.

"Dunno," Fang whispered back. He reached around behind him and froze with a pained grunt, blood draining from his face, eyes pinched shut. Pain radiated from the wing across the connected shoulder, shooting all the way down to his elbow, making him see stars. "Yes," he amended. "It's pretty fucked."

"Okay. Okay, well," Max started, scooting herself closer with tiny little gasps. She kept her leg straight across his thigh until it stuck out behind him, bloody shin against his side. "We'll just rip it. We're gonna need the rest to bind your wing, anyway."

She reached tentatively for his burnt wrist, fingers lingering on the bandaging as she looked up at him. The question was there, but her lips didn't ask 'how.' "Can you reach with this one? Hold one side for me?" She tucked his arm behind his back and then stretched around him with her good arm, carefully wiggling her fingers under the hemmed wing slit, brushing against Fang's knuckles where he gripped the fabric on the other side of the throbbing joint. He listened to her soft grunts as she struggled to hold onto the fabric, tearing it with a soft _shripp_. She collapsed back on her spot against the tree, paler than before.

Too much blood.

"Fang?"

He hummed around the sleeve of his newly-freed shirt, tearing it off with his teeth and pulling it into strips. The movements were robotic and focused. He'd done this too many times before.

"If you had to choose between a toothbrush, a comb, and a stick of deodorant, what would you choose?"

He tried to focus on her soft voice, but his mind was revolving again through images of Dylan; the glassy look in his eyes as everything ended; the way the dismembered wing folded like a cheap paper fan when it hit the concrete; the fear-strangled cry to save Max. Fang's heart felt bottomless, like he could spiral down and down and down in loss and regret for all time. But then, Max's blood was on his fingers. It turned the black shreds of his shirt the deepest purple in the fading daylight. She needed him, right now. He had to focus, to do it right. To stop the bleeding.

So much blood.

"I keep going back and forth. My teeth feel fuzzy, but I'm almost used to it, you know?" Her eyes slipped shut and her eyelashes darkened as they pressed against the moisture there. Her breaths were coming in shallow little gasps, staccato quick as Fang cinched the fabric. "But the...uughn, the knots in my hair seriously make my skin crawl."

She sat there, chest heaving, the rest of her still and quiet and soft with her spine curled and her head tilted back and her bandaged leg in his lap.

"I think I'd ask if they'd give me half a comb and a toothbrush. No toothpaste. Bargain with them, you know? Mint is nice, but I really just want to scrape my molars clean."

She stilled again, face slack, and when her dry lips parted Fang watched the cracked skin stick and pull apart like taffy.

"And then I could comb my hair." She shot him a tiny, fluttering smile, and there was a tightening in Fang's stomach like a ribbon tied to his spleen and pulling him inside out through his chest. He scooted closer, butt dragging through the dark earth, hip pinching. Sweat prickled on his lower back as his body screamed at him to just stop moving, stop breathing, stop everything.

Max cracked one eye, letting a tear escape in a sluggish path down her salt-crusted cheek. Fang pressed his hand to her face, fingertips curling around her ear and pushing into her hairline. Max's lips pinched together in a pathetic little smile, nostrils flaring, and she shook her head. She was trying to suck it up. Put a good face on it. Keep calm and carry on.

Fang pressed the pad of his thumb into the soft place at the corner of her eye where her tears were pooling.

"Don't," he whispered. Just a whisper. Just a breathy embrace of a single syllable. But he meant everything by it.

_Don't pull away from me. I'm here now. I love you._

Her smile flickered again and her eyes searched his. She reached up to grip the back of his neck feebly with her grimy palm. "I won't," she breathed, and he heard everything in it.

_I won't pull away. I am with you. I love you._

Sadness, regret, relief, desire, pushed towards him with one small breath and crushed him under a torrent of emotion.

"Let me kiss you." The words were merely a collection of tympanic clicks on his tongue and lips, no breath to carry them, no energy to deliver them.

Max's flickering smile softened. "Even if I'd kill for a toothbrush?"

"Even if you never touched a toothbrush again," he murmured and then his lips were on hers. Soft and warm, salty from the ocean, pliable between his. And for just a second, the briefest moment, everything was fine. Familiarity had never felt so good. He was sinking into the deepest idea of home he'd ever held.

But it couldn't last. Her lips were too cold. Her body shivered. And when he nuzzled into her, she didn't have the strength to push back. He pulled away, forehead resting against hers, trailing the tip of his nose up and down the bridge of hers. She leaned on him, body curling forward, hand falling from his neck to tug weakly at his shoulders.

Dark crept over them, bringing quiet with it.

"We have to keep moving," Max sighed.

Fang shook his head, taking her by the waist and straightening his spine. "We have to rest."

She looked up at him, argument flashing in her drooping eyes.

"You're exhausted. You've lost a lot of blood. Neither of us can fly." He paused, looking across the water to the lab where the docks were lit with floodlights. Two of the three boats had already returned. The third was on its way back. Fang let himself relax, just a little bit. Just enough to feel the tense knot between his shoulders. "I don't think they know we're here."

He ran his hand down her arm and felt the skin tight with goose bumps. The sun was long-gone now and the temperature was dropping. She must be freezing.

He huffed and moved to peel his undershirt off, carefully, wrestling the flexible fabric over his head and aching shoulder. He didn't want to tear it this time, not if he didn't have to. The ribbed material stretched enough that he could pull it apart at the slit, maneuvering it gingerly down and around his limp wing. He winced the whole way.

"What are you doing?"

He tugged at her good arm, threading it through one armhole and sliding the damp fabric up to her neck. "You're cold."

"And you're not?" Her protest was muffled as he slipped the fabric over her head. She twisted into it, gripping the folds and helping him to tug it gently over her slung arm until the hem pooled in her lap.

One task accomplished, he twisted to reach for the edge of his wing, the earth and leaves rustling beneath him. He grimaced as he began to fold it back in, inch by excruciating inch. Max wiggled still closer, practically in his lap, reaching around to press her hand against his feathers and hold his wing in place. Fang began tying strips of shirt around his torso until it seemed there was more cloth than skin.

Max reached up and drew the backs of her fingers across Fang's jaw. She probed the torn ridge of his ear with one careful finger. Her thumb pressed softly into the well of his ear, fingers curling around the back, and she tried to smile. "I'm gonna call you Spock now."

He almost smirked at her. Almost. But he remembered the ambush at the dummy shoe factory, where his ear had been ripped apart. He remembered tearing the last Eraser off of Dylan, one bright blue eye swelling shut, mahogany feathers strewn across the floor. And then he saw Dylan as he'd last seen him, kneeling, eviscerated, face crushed between dripping jaws.

He didn't think it would end so soon. So abruptly. They were just getting started, really. All those years spent hating Dylan, and then he'd become so important, so fast. He'd only known him for a week...

The soft pop when he parted his lips might as well have broken the sound barrier. His tongue was dry with everything he couldn't think of to say, so all he said was, "My friend died."

His friend.

He'd never even called him that, but it was true. Dylan had been his friend.

And now he was dead.

Dead dead dead

Max hesitated, searching his eyes, trying to understand. "You and Dylan figured out how to get along, huh?"

Fang locked Max in his arms, burying his face in her neck. "I couldn't have found you without him." He couldn't get his voice to rise above a whisper. Everything else was too heavy. He couldn't even fill his lungs all the way.

"Yeah?" Her warm breath fanned out across his neck and she kissed him there, curling into him.

"He made me keep it together. I would have lost you without him."

"But you didn't."

There was a minute of quiet. And then a thin whisper, "I've never been that scared." Of death. Of Erasers. Of losing someone.

"Me neither," she offered, folding into him.

Fang laid his chin on her head, fingers pressing through the ribbed cotton of his undershirt to find the divots between her ribs, rubbing her softly. He didn't want to talk about it anymore. He just wanted to think.

"You should sleep."

"But-"

"I'll take watch." He pressed his lips to the back of her head, breathing her in, and mumbled into her knotted hair, "You rest."

She was too weary to argue. That worried him. He hoped that if she could just sleep for a few hours, they'd be alright. She'd replenish the blood she'd lost. She'd be good to swim them to shore. He just had to watch over her in the meantime. Keep her safe. Keep his mind busy.

He tried to stay alert. He really did.

He brought his burned hand up to her hair, gauze catching on the snarls. He tugged gently at the curling ends, threading through tangles with his short fingernails, feather-light so he didn't wake her. He worked at the knots until each strand lay straight against her back and then he sat there, smoothing his hand over her head again and again, and thought about Dylan in the sewer tunnel. He watched the pale ghost of the moon stretch across the sea, lighting up the path to the mainland like a beacon, and thought about Dylan in Val's office. He saw the pinprick lights in the windows of the lab snuff out, one by one, until there was only a scattered handful left, and thought about Dylan on the rooftop, urging him to go to Max. Rescue Max. Save Max.

Soon, the things he saw blended with thin snips of dreams. They shifted in and out until he couldn't tell what was shiny from the moon and what was shiny from loss. When he blinked, his eyes stayed shut for too long, trapping him and keeping him captive.

On the backs of his lids, there was Dylan still. Bright blue eyes crinkled, grinning at each small victory they'd shared, fierce and determined. It felt mocking. It was interrupted and then overcome with gruesome flashes. All the layers of the memories, flayed and spread out before him every time his chin nodded towards his chest. The tangy smell of the blood. The sick squelch of the guts. The cloying smell of wet dog. The thundering of his heart as Dylan's stopped. The feel of Max clutching him as they fell away, leaving Dylan. Leaving him to die.

And then it switched. The relived nightmare twisted and coiled until it was Max: Max kneeling and eviscerated, her clipped wings draped like a cloak and speckled with her blood, the light going out in her eyes, Erasers closing in for the final bite.

He jolted awake in the dusky morning with fingers digging into Max's side and spit pooling at the corner of his lips. He was shaking. He felt sick from the memories. Sick with relief.

Relief that it wasn't Max who had died.

And then, sick with guilt. He wrapped himself around Max's body, wrists and ankles locked behind her back, and buried his head in her hair. Her breaths were soft and slow and so comforting.

Then he heard it. The thing that woke him.

_Whud whud whud whud_

He looked up, into the greying sky, and saw the helicopter drifting lazily over the ocean. Its propellers flashed pink above the sliver of rising sun. It hovered for a minute, ragged with chipped paint and no doors to speak of, all open sides. Then it spun on its tail to point right at them, flipped on bright search beams, and flew.

"Max." He spoke softly, into her hair, rubbing his palms up and down her back to try to wake her. "_Max_."

She groaned and curled into him more tightly. He straightened, neck cracking, arching his stiff shoulders back and regretting it instantly. He squeezed her shoulders tightly.

"We have to move. Now."

She must have heard the urgency in his voice, or maybe she registered the helicopter, because her eyes flew open and her shoulders shuddered. She ran her tongue over her teeth, making a face before turning to look at the chopper speeding over the channel in their direction. She scrambled to her feet in a second, Fang beside her, and together they skidded down the steep drop-off on heels and backsides.

Fang hesitated on a flat-top boulder at the shoreline, Max's hand tugging in his. There was another island, at least twice as big as the one with the lab and twice as close with the mainland. But they couldn't keep island hopping if they were going to make it.

Max seemed to have the same idea, tugging him a little farther down the beach with her gaze fixed on the distant hills of Japan. The water between stretched out formidably, murky in the dusk of the waking sun, lapping calmly at the pebbly beach of their hunk of rock island. It was peaceful in a way that tugged at Fang until he wished they weren't in a hurry.

_Whud whud whud whud_

Max rubbed her nose across her shoulder, twisting Fang's overlarge undershirt over her skin, and looked up at him plaintively. "Ready to swim?"

"Nope," he murmured. Max wrinkled her nose at him and then they were forging through the surf, stumbling over rocks like the ones on the other side. The sea shelf dropped off suddenly, dunking them both, and they readjusted for their swim. Fang tried to ignore the spongy feel of his gills sifting through water as he helped Max fit her wings through the slits in the back of the shirt that billowed around her. Once she was set, he took hold of her ankles, streamlining himself and his good wing behind her, and tapped her bare foot with his thumb.

And as the dampened sound of the helicopter reached them through the water, frighteningly close, they took off.

* * *

**A/N: **This is just the start of grieving over Dylan. There will be more opportunities. Right now, the danger is still high and the physical wounds are more urgent.

Also, it's the Fax most of you have been waiting for! I wrote this not only for the story as a whole, but also for you guys, who have been eager for Fang to have Max back since she vanished at the beginning. I hope it hit all the right spots.

I'll be honest, though: I have some misgivings about this chapter. It is literally twice as long as the others. It was a bear to edit - I don't know how **Lustrex** does hers at the length she does! When I edit a chapter that's 2k-3k words, I know where I'm starting, what I need to hit in the middle, and where to end. This chapter ran away from me with nearly 5k words, and everything got so nebulous that I never got to the "refinement" stage of editing. In the past, when I've had chapters balloon like this, I've split them and developed the halves as separate chapters. But the emotional flow of this one is such that I couldn't find a way to break it without...well, _breaking_ it.

Because I've put myself on a schedule, you get it like this, and I think it's probably fine for FFN because readers like fanservice, but I'm a little uncomfortable with how long this is. If I had more time I would try to trim this down a LOT - maybe summarize all the bandaging in the middle. **KLoves2Read** assured me that it's long, but an easy read, so maybe I'm being too harsh. I don't know, you tell me. What did you think?

Okay, review responses: I have 11 new notes, and 10 on Seven Seconds alone! Whaaaat? It's the most reviews I've ever had on one chapter, and I'm surprised and grateful.

**Nola96: **Thank you for letting me make you like Dylan. I think Seven Seconds was definitely my best chapter. I hope all the others are enjoyable, even if they're not quite as tight!

**thestupidgenius1123:** Fang &amp; Dylan could have had the best bromance. That's one of the worse tragedies, as my beta-reader mused: that they'd just barely started. There was so much that could have happened. I tried to show some of that with Fang's grieving. But writing grieving is hard! How do I make Fang mull over it without it feeling heavy-handed to readers? I'm sure that's something I'll have to learn to refine as I walk through the last set of chapters.

**Lustrex: **Honestly, all the comments that Dylan's death makes sense, because he had nowhere else to go, surprised me. Because it honestly wasn't something that I thought about! The decision to have Dylan die in this scene came so early on that I never got around to trying to think of what would happen if he _didn't_ die. The way I've written him, though, it really would be kind of bleak. The best would be maybe for him to go back to Switzerland, go back to his missions in Africa, because being around Max still wakes up parts of him that he is diligent about keeping under control. And maybe he and Fang would write emails back and forth for a while, but it would be hard because Fang would want to talk about Max, and even if he didn't, Dylan would _know_ that when Fang talked about the best lakes for swimming in, that he'd gone swimming with Max. It would be too hard. He'd have to let it go.

**DntlessAnnabeth: **Thank you for getting invested enough to be sad!

**pancakes-for-you: **I love your attempt at putting that surge of emotion into a review, that was epic. I can't lie, back-reviews are a beautiful thing. If you feel so inclined, I won't stop you!

**Guest #1: **That could be an interesting story - Take Dylan's 'programmed' attachment to Max and turn it into something good. Something I read recently approached that... "After Angel," by **musikfreakmeg. **She just posted an extra chapter and walks through a unique perspective on Dylan's programming. And you're right, Fang was just so focused on getting away that everything else got away from him. I'll bring him to a point of regret for that, promise. There's more danger to walk through first, though.

**j4bb3rwocky: **Sometimes, your reviews make me want to dance. I do think that Seven Seconds is my best chapter, for the writing, for the artistry, for the thought I put behind it. There's one other thing that I did, but I'm going to wait to see if you catch it on your read-through instead of just telling you. I'd love to hear The Rant (TM?) about Max and Men, hit me with it.

**Max-Without-Wings: **I'm glad you're excited to read my story! I hope you enjoy all of it!

**WithoutWings: **Can I just say thanks for looking at my stuff critically as well as finding ways to encourage me? It's so refreshing to find reviews that are willing to look at technique as well as the emotional impact of a chapter. Thanks also for your comment on Escape to Gunkanjima, and for pointing out that blip in the writing! I fixed it right away - it was one of those where I'd rearranged a portion of the paragraph and forgot to delete the first iteration. Woops.

**Guest #2: **Aw, please don't feel like you have to leave essays or not review at all! I'm always glad for _any_ responses to the work I've put in, even if it's just to tell me that you liked or hated it. Thanks for the note on the chapter. Poor Dylan.

**KLoves2Read: **I'm glad you're not the only one carrying the weight of Dylan's death, too. You've been so good at keeping spoilers out of your reviews and I'm always so grateful for that! And...well, the GH fight _was_ the big sympathy sequence for Dylan - but I hadn't started writing Seven Seconds yet. I'm glad that this fulfills that itch.

**Thanks to everyone who took the time to cry over Dylan in the review box. You all MADE my Tuesday.**

**Next chapter over the weekend!**


	31. Chapter 30 - Daybreak

**Author's Note: **Huge thanks to **KLoves2Read** for trudging through this first!

_Content Warning: __strong language throughout_

* * *

**CHAPTER 30 – DAYBREAK**

The thrumming of propellers never faded out of earshot. Max and Fang were cutting across the channel, swimming for the mainland, the helicopter seeming to follow them. They hid by swimming deeper, but the muted sound never completely went away.

_Whuh whuh whuh whuh_

The ocean brightened around them as the sun rose, revealing flashing schools of fish and the scintillating floor of sea grass beneath them. Max's wings sliced through clear blue and sunbeams, pushing them towards the mainland. A southward current tugged them gently. Fang held tightly to Max's ankles, using his good wing as a rudder, watching Max's undershirt billow around her like a jellyfish. They forged ahead, closer and closer to the mainland, until finally they slipped through a submerged breakwater. They floated gently into still water, warm and currentless, sand and manmade beach looming ahead.

_Whuh whuh whuh whuh_

The sandy floor gently rose to meet them, inching closer and closer until Fang could reach down and touch it. They army-crawled up the sand shelf towards the beach, careful to stay beneath the foamy surface. The sound of the chopper above faded and then grew. It was circling back around. Way too close for comfort. Hovering. Its shadow passed over them every few minutes.

Undeniably now. Waiting for them.

They lingered, lost in a cloud of stirred up sand, waiting under the shadow of the enemy. Max hovered on her elbow and knees, her hair undulating in the current. Fang swiped at his neck like he was being eaten by mosquitoes. He tried to cup his hands over his gills, to keep the sand out, but the feeling of the wide slits fluxing open and shut against his palms made him want to vomit on the whitecoat who decided gills were a good addition to homo-avian recombinant beings.

Max looked up as the helicopter's shadow shifted, bathing them in sunlight for a hot second and then covering them up again. She fell onto her unbandaged forearm, eyes pinched shut, nose to the sand in a picture of despair. Fang reached for her wrist and rubbed with one thumb, shifting closer, sand working into his clothes. He pressed his lips to the side of her face and waited for her to respond.

She finally turned to peer at him, brows worrying wrinkles into her forehead.

"Ready?" he mouthed. Max blinked when Fang started to shimmer and disappear. Her eyes flashed in understanding and she nodded, lacing her fingers with his. She disappeared along with him until the only things left were scoops of compressed sand where their invisible knees kept the ocean from filling it in.

With Max's hand secured in his, Fang vaulted to his feet. Water droplets cascaded down nothing in a vaguely Fang-shaped spray. He coughed the last of the saltwater out of his gills, calculating the steps between him and the row of trees and homes twenty yards ahead. He felt Max stand, her grip tightening and pulling and then her wrapped shoulder brushing against his.

_Whud whud whud whud_

And they ran.

Divots appeared up the beach in sprays of glittering sand. Fang's busted hip ground in its socket with every step. The helicopter beat against the air above them.

Fifteen yards to the end of the beach.

Twelve yards to cover.

Ten...

He saw it too late.

He tripped over the buried hunk of driftwood. His fingers bent backwards as Max's hand was ripped away.

She rippled into plain sight just as she was sent flying over the piece of wood. She hit the sand with a thump and a pained gasp. Fang threw off his Imperceptibility without a thought and scrambling back.

"Max!"

Something slammed into the middle of his back, knocking the wind out of him and throwing him to the ground. Sand filled his mouth and nose as thick cables cinched his arms against his body. He was jerked twice and then something lifted him by his lower back, yanking him out of the sand, cables digging into his flesh. A winch whined from above and Fang tipped upside down, blood rushing to his head. He spun like a top in the wake of the chopper as he was reeled in.

The roar of the propeller was all-consuming.

Something whistled out of the other side of the cockpit, a burst of cording like groping tentacles. Max was on hand and knees when the twin bolas spun closed around her. The weighted ends connected with her back in a hollow thump, choking her cry of surprise. Her hair flew around her agonized face as she was plucked from the sand like a ragdoll. She looked murderous. She thrashed wildly like a fish on a hook, bare feet kicking and making her spin like a whirligig.

Fang slammed to a painful stop, back to one helicopter skid. Sharp metal dug into his spine. Max was lifted past him, disappearing into the cockpit. It wasn't very big. Sized for two whitecoats with an Eraser for backup, if it wasn't morphed.

Fang jerked helplessly, mind racing. His head and legs were free, but his wounded hip was nearly immobilizing. So he had one good leg. One leg and a set of teeth. Was escape via ankle biting a viable plan?

His eyes flew to the sand below. Just a short drop. If he could get Max out, she could make it. Probably. Make a dash for the trees. Fang would do whatever damage he could to keep them off her tail long enough for her to get away.

There was a loud, metallic clang, and Fang was moving again. He scraped over the skid, grunting when rusted metal tore into his makeshift bandages and ripped out feathers. A sweaty hand shoved his shoulder to angle him so he could be towed into the open, doorless cockpit.

A gleeful cackle made Fang look up.

"You look like shit, Ride!"

Fang reeled as the winch dragged him onto the cockpit floor. "Marty?" His pants caught on the jagged bolts scattered where passenger seats had been.

"It's Richard, kid."

Marty squatted in front of the spinning winch, sweat beading on his ruddy forehead. His body strained against a peeling walk-a-thon t-shirt from the previous millennium, the blue cotton darker under his arms, across his chest, under the flabby swell of his stomach. Mesh gym shorts stretched obscenely across his thighs, flattening his groin.

"Marty?" Max echoed gaping. She twisted around to glare at him.

"What the hell is this?" Fang tried to jerk away when grubby fingers twisted into the ropes around his shoulders, hauling him further in before securing the ends of the ropes to a bracket on the floor. The pilots chair was surrounded by a halo of twine and duct tape that wrapped around the controls, depressing buttons and holding the hand controls in place.

Marty shoved his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. "Just trying to make a living, Nicky. No hard feelings." He stood with a volley of knee pops and shoved Max towards the center of the floor with the toe of his foot, nose to knee against Fang.

"You're looking at human trafficking charges, Tubby," Max snarled, craning her neck to glare at him upside-down. She tried to sit up but fell back immediately, her bindings snapping taught against the floor bracket she'd been tied to.

Marty snorted. "That's a stretch, dontcha think, sweetheart?" He brushed a couple of crushed down feathers off the front of his shirt and turned to drop his ass into the pilot's seat. "God, I need a real coffee. None of this weak jap shit."

He peeled off one of the strips of duct tape and gripped the collective control. The 'copter jerked up, tail swinging widely. Marty cursed and grabbed the cyclic between his knees, picking more tape off with his thumb. The helicopter dipped unsteadily, rolling Max and Fang towards an open side before their bindings caught them roughly. Fang's knee slammed into Max's bandaged arm and she squealed sharply. He caught hold of her fingers with the tips of his, pulling her back to his chest and struggling to free at least one of his hands.

"You freaks are more trouble than you're worth, you know that?" Marty called back. "You've fucked up everything, Ride. Every single thing. I finally delivered, got Tanaki to pay up, and then you fucked it all up in under an hour." He snorted ruefully. "I shouldn't be so surprised."

"What the hell are you talking about?" Fang fumbled with Max's bindings. The weights at the ends were trapped under the ropes. He glanced at Marty, but the guy was busy mishandling the helicopter controls and picking at his jerry-rigged autopilot system. The 'copter tipped and Max's weight fell into Fang, trapping his hand between them.

"This was supposed to be an easy job. My last job. Deliver the goods, retire to Dubai, buy some Apple stock and a little island. Piece of cake." The helicopter tipped again, swinging out over the open water. "The only thing I had to be hands-on for was when I showed up on your doorstep and knocked out your wife with some chloroform shit. She never saw it coming."

Fang watched the island arc past on the horizon, the sprawling lab glinting in the bright morning sun. The water was featureless below them. They were too high. If he pushed Max out now, without her wings, she'd hit the water like a watermelon on concrete.

Max saw, too. She twisted, face pressed to the floor, and whispered in flockish, "Narkelm. Linhop hooey." Her good fingers searched for his, finding his hand and directing him back to her bonds.

_Keep going. Distract him. _

Marty peeled the front of his shirt off his chest, fanning it in and out. "But then you fucked up Africa. Missed the contact in Meftah. And you ditched New York, and Tanaki was gonna take the job from me altogether. Having one bird girl wasn't enough, he said. He needed to make more of you. Greedy-ass son of a bitch."

"You're fucked up," Fang spat. Max arched her back as he pushed one weight under a rope, loosening her bindings just a little. Not enough.

"That's rich, coming from you, Big Bird." Marty's self-satisfied snicker was reduced to a surprised grunt as the helicopter dipped, swinging to the left and losing a hundred feet before he got it back under control. "You know how hard it's been, Ride? Trying to treat you like a person when I've known this whole time what you really are? How much better I am than your smug, camera-dragging ass? I kept telling myself, 'Think about the money, Rich, just think about the money,' but then you go and dig yourself back into the shithole. I thought I finally had it made when you brought me that cousin of yours. Called Tanaki and told him I had two males for the Hashima lab instead of one. It was the happiest I'd heard him, and you were standing right outside the door!"

Another weight free. Fang's fingers were red and numb but Max's hand twisted out of the ropes and tugged at the crossed cables across her back. He found the place where the tether was attached to the bola and tugged carefully at the knot.

"Of course, that moron had to go and get mauled while you two skipped town. Couldn't trust those sons-of-bitches wolfmen to finish the job right. That's why I got called in, Tanaki said, to come clean up this fuckin' mess on my own. Apparently the only thing you can do when those wolfmen go berserk like that is to put 'em down, same way they did to that fuckwit bird brain who let 'em catch 'im."

The words were knives, driven deep and twisted hard. Fang yanked the end of Max's tether free and writhed around to lash out with one shoe at the base of the pilot's chair. "You don't know what the fuck you're talking about!" He kicked again and Marty scowled over his shoulder.

"I know exactly what the fuck I'm talking about, Ride. I know we talked right before you left for ASIX. I know the three million dollar transfer showed up in my bank account within the hour. And when it vanished and my phone rang, Tanaki chewed me out and dragged me out here on _my_ dime, no time to pack or nothing, to make sure he didn't lose you guys, too." Marty's face twisted in disgust. "Like it's my problem he couldn't keep tabs on a coupla overgrown parakeets. Like it's my fault that _retard_ had to go and get eaten by the fucked up security. He's not even good for zoo meat anymore, they said."

Fang gave a strangled yell, lashing out at the chair with his good leg and feeling the impact in his teeth. "Fuck you! Fuck you, Marty! Fuck you! You motherfucking shitty fucking fucker!"

"Don't try to pin this on me, asshole! I told you, you went and fucked this shit up every step of the way. If you'd just stayed on assignment in Africa like you were fuckin' supposed to, the dodo could've gone on to live a long and happy life and you would've been reunited with your bitch of a wife a helluva lot sooner!"

Max shrieked, twisting in her bindings. "You're a fucking wacko! Tanaki should feed _you_ to the Erasers, you asshat!"

Marty snarled, "Watch your mouth, honey."

Fang flailed, a steady stream of curses firing at Marty. His foot connected with the knobby bone on Marty's ankle. Marty yelped and whirled around, his fat-ass elbow knocking into the collective control. The chopper jerked up like it was on marionette strings.

Their world tipped and Max slid, bound but untethered, tumbling across the floor towards the open side.

Fang's stomach lurched. He lunged as Max slid over the threshold, twisting to grab for her with his free hand. His fingers wedged between her ribs and one of the bola strings and his rope snapped taught, the bracket groaning under their combined weight.

Marty spat out a string of curses and spun back around, slapping the dash in frustration and fumbling for the controls. "Fuckin' cheap flying lessons," he wheezed and pulled back, more or less getting the 'copter stable and locking the controls with his little strips of duct tape. "They're gonna hear from me. I want my Benjamin back."

Once his jerry-rig was semi-secure, he got up with a pathetic groan and moved to stand over Fang. He limped dramatically, one hand on his lower back, whimpering on the ankle Fang had kicked once with his rubber shoe sole. He observed coldly as Max dangled from Fang's shaking white fingers, kicking against the skid and trying desperately to wiggle back inside.

"Don't fuckin' drop her, Ride. I can't lose half my package. I've already lost one mill over your cousin, and fuck my mom if I lose another." He paused and then kicked out sharply, digging his toe into Fang's crushed wing and making him yelp.

Marty sniggered, "Dumbass bird," and slid back into his pilot's seat, still chuckling to himself, "Five minutes till my two million's back where it belongs." He flicked one of the pieces of twine and spun the hovering chopper, aiming for the gleaming lab buildings. "Five minutes till hard-earned retirement!"

Fang held his breath, his whole body shaking with the effort of holding Max with three fingers. His chest heaved. He braced himself for the moment when the copter tipped forward to carry them back to death, but the moment never came.

"The fuck?" Marty murmured. The pilot chair squeaked as he twisted around, peering squinty-eyed out the side.

"Fang!" Max cried, wild eyes fixed on the sky. Fang tore his eyes from her to look.

His heart leapt.

There were four. Black specks growing at an insane rate. Bigger than sparrows, bigger than seagulls, bigger than any bird Japan could lay claim to. And one of them was coming in like a rocket.

Marty abandoned his seat, copter hovering high on twine and tape. He dropped to his knees to dig in his pack.

Fang heaved, finally pulling Max back in.

The safety clicked off on Marty's handgun.

Max shrieked.

"Eat dust, douchebag!" The Gasman flew into Marty feet first.

The gun went off.

* * *

**A/N: I love cliffhangers. Neerhahaha...**

**And THANK YOU for the encouragement re: the length of the last chapter. It looks like my instinct was right and the length was an asset, not a drag, for conveying the emotional and physical overload. One of the most interesting things about the reviews was the way you guys interpreted Max's toothbrush, comb, deodorant monologue. It makes me glad that I wasn't explicit about what _my_ intentions for that piece were, because each of your interpretations works and I think it makes the chapter more dynamic. Gah, writing is so fun.**

**Nola96: **Oh, hey, you are in FL, too! Cool! I agree, the idea of drowning is totally terror-worthy. I figured, okay, they were given gills...but it's still not a _natural_ thing for them to have. It still wouldn't feel natural to breathe with them. I imagine it would take a lot of mental willpower to get yourself to stop panicking, so I tried to write than into Fang's experience. And my beta really liked the I don't/I won't conversation, too, so I guess I did something right there. Awesome!

**j4bb3rwocky: **The gills are utterly ridiculous. Always. What the crap was JP thinking? I don't know. So here I am, trying to make sense of them...I'm glad it made you giggle. I hope M&amp;F's continued struggles to get safe are satisfying to read.

**Guest: **Aw, thank you! I love writing Fax, there's just something about them. This story is about more than the Fax, obviously, but I wanted to make the moment a really good one when we finally got Max back. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

**thestupidgenius1123: **No, I get it. There's something about pain, about reading someone else struggle with it, that satisfies some weird itch. Even (especially?) if it's a character we care about. Thank you for all the sweet words about my descriptive style. I have this weird relationship with it where I've been told often enough that I do it well to know it's true, but then I still worry about bogging everything down by being too wordy, or that I'll stifle imaginations by giving too many details, or whatever. My goal is always to write detail that enhances a scene, not detracts from it...usually, by trying to incorporate it into the action rather than just having one of those "here, picture this" moments that are so terrible to read (and write!).

**Lustrex: **You've hit the nail on the head about Fang grieving over Dylan - there's no time! They're still on the run, they have some pretty immediate needs that MUST get met or they die, and Max hasn't been through the journey. She doesn't know. She can't, really. So in comes Marty, Asshole Prime, to spew his nasty opinion about the job and about Dylan and gives Fang a foil. Someone to be angry at. And I'm hoping it's extra-satisfying, because we _all_ want to be angry at Marty.

**Max-Without-Wings: **We'll get there, I promise! Val will have a plan. They just have to _get_ to her, first!


	32. Chapter 31 - The Cavalry

**Author's Note:** Thanks as always to the lovely **KLoves2Read** for reminding me that I wrote the helicopter to be small, so I should probably not give the whole flock room to have a tea party on the floor.

* * *

**CHAPTER 31 – THE CAVALRY**

The windshield imploded in a spray of glass. Fang threw himself across Max, stifling her surprised shout. Tinkling shards ricocheted off steel and pelted exposed skin.

Gazzy tackled Marty to the floor. Marty screamed. Two more rounds fired, escaping through the gaping front.

"Get off, you stupid flying freak!" Marty shrieked. He looked like an overturned cockroach.

"Not gonna happen, you jerk!" Angel shouted, swinging up from the skid. She landed, teetering, with her tip-toes on the edge of one open side of the over-crowded cockpit. Her hair looked like a living thing. "Iggy can't help, this thing is way too loud!" she shouted, taking in the melee at her feet.

Max jerked underneath Fang, trying to rescue her face from under his shoulder. "Angel, think you can fly this thing?"

Gazzy locked his knees around Marty's substantial gut, riding him like a bronco. Marty's heel slammed into Fang's hip. Fang bit his tongue and curled around Max.

Angel blanched. "I can't even play Mario Kart!"

Nudge appeared behind her, limbs spanning the opening, eyes wide and fearful. Feathers flew behind her. "Those propellers are lethal!" She clung to the craft, white knuckles and locked shoulders, struggling to pull her wings in as she pressed herself against Angel's back. "Where's Dylan?"

Angel, shoulders thrown forward, hung between the mass of bodies at her feet and Nudge's chest flattened against her wings.

Max groaned into Fang's shoulder and lay still beneath him. Her leader-voice sounded thick and hot against his skin. "Fang and I are grounded. You'll have to-"

"Look out!" Gazzy's elbow dug deep into Marty's stomach. The gun jerked in Marty's hand.

Two shots rang out.

Nudge screamed. Gazzy landed a punch that made Marty wheeze, the gun clattering to the floor.

The first shot tore through the MacGyver stabilizer setup. It ripped through a suspended wad of duct tape and twine, pulling controls out of alignment. The helicopter spun, tipping and dipping through the sky.

The second bullet...

Fang felt something shove him, hard. Knocked the wind right out of him.

He slid off of Max. She was screaming. Crying his name.

He had half a second to wonder what exactly she was screaming about before his world became very, very focused. His lungs expanded like balloons. Bursting. Tight. Dire. His entire being, wrapped around pain like a towel in a wringer. Like he got kicked by a horse.

The unfettered copter shook.

_That bastard. _He couldn't let his breath back out. _The_ _bastard had shot him_.

The gun skittered across the floor, glancing Fang's face on its way out of the craft.

It hardly registered. A drop in an ocean of delirious pain.

The chopper blades stuttered. It began to spin on its tail, falling out of the sky. They were high, but not high enough.

Nudge screamed again. She made a grab for an exterior handle with both hands and hugged her body against the craft. "We're gonna crash!" She struggled to keep her feet planted with Angel right against her.

Fang tried to lift his head, to see how bad it was, but he couldn't do it. The muscles just wouldn't work right. He made a helpless noise, head flopping to the side. Max came into view, eyes blazing, yelling at him. Shouting...something. He couldn't focus.

Gazzy hunched over the unconscious, sweaty lump of a man. He turned towards Max's angry shouts and his face melted into a mask of horror. His hands sank into Marty's flesh as he struggled up, scrambling on hands and knees and shoving Max's ankles out of the way. "You guys take Max!"

Max wouldn't quit. "Fang! Look at me! Look at me, just focus!"

Nudge wailed, "But what about-"

"I'll get him! Just go!"

Max was shrieking now. Her breath was hot against his face. "Lookit me, goddamnit! Fang!" Her bindings dug into her as she wormed closer. Deep red was smeared across her hip, thick and shiny.

Fang broke out in a cold sweat. It was like Max's voice was swimming through him. Weaving through his skin, an intangible thing. Like smoke seeping through his fingers.

Angel pitched forward, Nudge right behind her. They hauled her writhing, shrieking form up off the floor. Angel yelped when she started to let her wings out and was jerked backward by the wind. Nudge's face was wide open and panicked when she looked back at Fang.

Max kicked. "No, no! We are _not_ leaving him!"

"Gazzy's got it!" Angel locked Max against her chest, twining her fingers together, and pulled. "Nudge, c'mon!"

Nudge was hyperventilating. "Where's Dylan?"

"Get her out! Watch the blades!"

"Fang, so help me god! I will-"

The girls disappeared out the side of the aircraft. The roar of the propellers swallowed Max's voice, flooding the space they'd left behind. The thin metal whistled and creaked with unbalanced weight as the chopper circled down towards the waves below. Faster now.

Then Gazzy was there, straddling Fang's knees, but Fang still couldn't focus. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. He groped blindly for the tether with his free hand, blood-slick fingers unable to keep hold. They were glistening black. Like a sharpie marker had exploded in his hand. His fingers shook. His voice, eerily quiet, like sandpaper on slate, "Gaz..."

"I know, bro, just hold on." Gazzy grabbed the tether from Fang, fingers flying over the knot. He tugged. Pulled with both hands. Dug his fingers into the center. "Fuck!" His fingers slipped on the bloodied rope. They were shaking now, too.

He twisted around and came back fisting a thumb-sized shard of the windshield. He tried to hack through the cable. The glass dug through skin, mixing Gazzy's blood with Fang's. The very edges of the cord were barely beginning to fray.

The copter was falling faster, faster, down to the sea. The ocean loomed through the open side of the cockpit, thick air trying to gut the cabin.

The floor beneath them went vertical. Marty's body rolled, the unconscious mass crushing Gazzy into Fang hard enough to snap the frayed tether. Gazzy ducked his head, grabbed Fang, and the three of them tumbled from the cockpit.

Marty plunged into the water next to them. Swallowed up whole. Fang gasped as frigid water flew into his face. Gazzy yelped, dipping low with Fang's weight, legs getting soaked. He tightened his grip and pumped his wings hard, fighting to pull up.

The helicopter was _right there_.

A gust from the propellers filled Gazzy's wings, sending them shooting across the surface of the water. The chopper hit the churning sea behind them with a tremendous noise, ripping and tearing and squealing as it sank. The deadly blades splintered like they hit a wood chipper.

Three more strokes and Gazzy's wings finally caught real wind. They soared up, pulled on strings towards the clouds, and took off with an insane burst of speed.

Fang hung slack, wind burning his eyes. His stomach was on _fire_.

He was burning. Flames of hell raged somewhere beneath his lungs, catching everything in the inferno from the inside out. It was just one shot, a single bullet, but it felt like he could fit his whole fist through the hole. Like he'd been hole-punched by a bowling ball. Like he'd been ripped in half.

His vision swam with pulsing black dots. He was going to pass out.

Fang's world slowed. He looked at Gazzy's arms, coated with blood. Gaz's white t-shirt looked like a Rothko painting. Fang's head flopped back, unhinged. They were moving so fast. He stared numbly at a cloud above them, massive and billowy, towering in a gleaming column of mist. The edges were in relief, silvery with unshed rainwater. The way the sun poked through was mesmerizing, rippling through the mists like embers rolling over a log.

Gazzy pulled up and Fang's stomach just about escaped through his throat. The chorus of voices was instantaneous.

"You made it! We thought-"

"Ohmigod, there's so much blood! He's white as a sheet!"

"Let Iggy help!"

Gazzy growled, "I've got it!"

"If he dies, I'm gonna kill him!" Max was suspended between Angel and Nudge. She writhed like a cat in a bath. She froze when her eyes landed on Gazzy. "Fang..." Panic twisted her features. "Fang! Hey! Fang! Snap out of it!"

"We barely got out. The chopper's gone." Gazzy's voice was pinched. His eyes, wide as dinner plates. His fingers curled tightly into Fang, pressing deep through the ropes, holding him together.

"He's so pale..." Nudge shook her head furiously, gulping down unshed tears. "Did anyone see Dylan?"

Angel squealed, readjusting her grip around Max's shoulders. "Hold her legs, Nudge!"

"Fang! Damnit, Fang! Open your goddamn eyes!"

Nudge's voice broke. "You're gonna make me drop you!" She shoved Max's ankles up under her armpits and looked down. "Erasers!" She gave a surprised little kick, fluttering her wings. "There are boats with Erasers coming from that island, two...no, three of them..."

"Gaz, we've gotta move." Iggy's voice was urgent. "Let me help with Fang." He flew closer, arms outstretched.

Gazzy shook his head, tightening his grip. "I've got him."

The roar of the motorboats grew.

Max's keening pleas were frantic, "Fang, Fang, please, Fang, please-"

"They have guns!" Nudge shrieked. She dragged Max higher, Angel fluttering along beneath with Max's shoulders braced on her chest.

Iggy reached for Fang. "Any time now, Gazzer."

Fang's stomach heaved. He gagged wetly, mouth filling with copper and salt and bitter bile. He gaped dumbly, lips stained red.

Gazzy drew back. "He's hurt too bad. I'm gonna fly ahead. I'll see you guys there!" He turned towards the mainland and took off like a rocket. Fang thought of the way the stars lengthened when the Millennium Falcon jumped into hyperdrive. The wind rushed past, faster than it should have, as they tore away from the flock.

He was cold now. Colder than he should have been, even at this altitude. He tried to look back, but the flock was already so far away.

Everything was far away.

The Flock. The ocean. Fang's body. His thoughts. Everything was slipping away, too slippery to take back.

Gazzy was clutching him to his chest. Gripping him too tightly. Tight enough to keep his soul from escaping with each breath.

Then, cool dark slipped over him. It muffled the world and drew his shuddering breaths out of his lungs with the long pale fingers of death.

Gazzy shifted his hold and a jolt of pain sizzled through Fang's body like a flash fuse. The dark retreated. He groaned, weak and throaty. Clammy cold trickled down his spine.

Gazzy's quiet chanting slipped through, distorted and whisper-soft, "You're gonna make it, we're gonna make it, you're gonna make it, Max will _kill_ me, you're gonna make it..."

Then, cool dark again.

Everything seemed to be slipping out of Fang. His blood, his heat, his breath. Seeping out through the ragged bullet wound in his stomach. It was nice, that cool dark. It was inviting. A reprieve. It offered to soothe the hellfire that blazed in his abdominal cavity. It offered peace.

So he let it take him.

* * *

**A/N: ** I began writing this chapter by Googling "what does it feel like to get shot in the stomach." Research at its finest. This chapter has been mashed and molded I don't even know how many times at this point, and I'm sure the next time I read it I'll want to change even more. But it's _late_ Friday now, and I want to post, because this story needs to get finished.

**Nola96: **I'm glad Marty doesn't seem like a whacko-crazy. I tried to make it clear how motivated he is by greed. By monetary gain. Rather than ter Borcht, a little crazy for revenge, or Gunther-Hagen, who was seriously nutso. They can't all be whacked.

**Max-Without-Wings: **Asshat just seems like such a Max-ish swear word. JP fills his books with all kinds of weird swear-replacements for Max in the interest of keeping her kid-friendly. Fanfiction gives me a little more leeway for swear words with a little more punch.

**DntlessAnnabeth: **Right? Birdkids are fun! Every time I write them all together, though, I feel like I'm juggling water balloons. It's a lot to keep track of.

**j4bb3rwocky: **I saw Spamalot! on Wednesday and remembered your comment re: the ankle-biting. It made me giggle just a little bit harder. I'm glad the little drip of humor didn't break the tension of the scene.

**KLoves2Read: **Ahah, I didn't think of Dick as short for Richard, that's great. I guess it's also a pretty direct nod towards Marty's greed, but I didn't mean it that way when I chose it. It was just the first plain name my brain spit out.

**Lustrex: **Hmm...It sounds like I didn't make the break between escaping and sleeping on the island feel long enough. Part of why I had them sleep was to give everyone time (the Flock AND Marty) to get out there, but maybe I didn't leave enough time? I think originally I'd had them busting out of the lab in the afternoon, versus at sunset, and it's definitely possible that I forgot that I'd framed it that way for a reason.


	33. Chapter 32 - Safety is Relative

**Author's Note: **Thank you to my wonderful beta-reader **KLoves2Read** for always keeping me on track.

* * *

**CHAPTER 32 – SAFETY IS RELATIVE**

_Dylan, silhouetted, all in white. Dylan, releasing a tiny Max from cupped hands like a dove in a trick. Dylan, with gaping Eraser faces ripping their way out of his stomach._

_Dead_

_Marty, red faced and eyes blazing. Marty, with guns instead of hands. Marty, with money spilling from his mouth in a grotesque waterfall as the ocean rushes up to meet him._

_Dead_

_Max, face frozen in terror. Max, with stumps instead of wings. Max, trapped; helicopter, plummeting; ocean, rolling with flames; dead dead dead_

Everyone was dying!

_...beep bip...beep bip...beep bip..._

Fang's eyes flew open. The grating ping of the heart monitor set his teeth on edge. The fluorescents blinded him. Antiseptic burned his nasal passages.

His heart pounded, _glug glug glug,_ thick like molasses, weighed down with drugs.

White room, hospital floors, empty bed next to his. Panic.

_Where's Max?_

A key turned in the lock. The door opened. A tiny Asian woman in a white lab coat came in, carrying a syringe and clear liquid in a vial.

_Yume!_

Fang tried to sit up. He scraped at his covers like he was clawing out of a tar pit. His panic rose as the blanket twisted around his arms. He tried to shout.

The woman shrieked, her supplies skittering across the floor. She slipped back out and Fang was alone again.

He couldn't catch his breath. Everything was too shiny, too bright, too sterile. He was back in the lab. Dylan was dead. But where was Max?

_...beep bip...bip bip...bip bip...bip bip...bip bip bip bip bip bip bip bip..._

**_Fang!_**

Each breath was shallower, faster. He rocked from side to side, trying to get free, but his arms just weren't moving. Why couldn't he move?

**_Fang! Calm down, you're okay!_**

But he wasn't, he wasn't okay. His chest was tight and he couldn't make his muscles work and Max was _gone,_ they had her!

**_Max is fine, you're fine, we're all fine! Just...ugh, just hold on!_**

She could be hurting. They might be cutting into her. She could be maimed, poisoned, mauled, electrified. Eaten, like Dylan. She could be dead!

**_Fang!_**

"Fang!"

He gasped raggedly. The voice was everywhere - in his mind, echoing in the hallway outside - trying to make him be calm. He managed to rock onto his side and peered over the edge of the bed to the floor below. If he could just get down, just get himself to the floor, he could go save Max.

**_Fang, stop!_**

A fist slammed against the observation window.

_Th-tonk! kuh-de kuh-de kuh-de..._

Fang tore his eyes from the blue-specked linoleum and saw Angel on the other side of the glass. His chest heaved. They had Angel, too?

**_Fang, it's fine! Just hold on!_**

Angel turned away. She looked okay, but Fang didn't trust it. She shouldn't be here at all. Through the windowpane, he heard her.

"He doesn't need any more sedatives, he's just scared and disoriented! Let me..."

Fang looked back over the side of the bed, to the floor below. He'd rescue Angel, too. And the others, if they were here. He just needed to get down.

The lock turned again.

With straining and huffing and a massive effort, Fang swung one leg over, off the side of the bed. He tipped over the edge and realized with a flash of anxiety that he was tangled in the blankets.

Before he could face plant, cool hands were pressing against his shoulder, pushing him back. And Angel was there, leaning over him, whispering, "You're okay. You're okay, I promise. Just calm down. Caaaaaaaaaalm down."

Fang struggled to control his breathing. He squinted, trying to make the shiny sheen on everything go away. Angel was right in front of him, so maybe she really was okay. But where was Max?

"Max is fine. She's in surgery."

"Urg'ry?" Fang watched Angel tug his blanket down and pull his shirt up. Whatever she was doing, he couldn't feel it.

"Oh, good." She sounded relieved. "You didn't pull any stitches." She covered him back up and smiled softly, running her hand over his arm. "Yeah, they're just fixing Max up. That's all. They'll put her right next to you when she's done." She motioned to the adjacent bed. "We've all been waiting around, but this room gets so stuffy, I swear. We only went to find food, like, ten minutes ago." She brought her hand to his face, smoothing his hair back. "You're lucky I've been keeping mental tabs on you. You scared the shitake mushrooms out of that nurse. They were gonna sedate you again."

Fang closed his eyes, lingering on Angel's reassurances, rolling the words around in his mind, counting them and keeping them.

The flock was safe. He and Max were getting medical care. This wasn't the lab.

He began to relax, Angel's cool hands on his face. Her lips were trapped in a pensive frown. "There were Erasers all over the crash site. All over the island. We couldn't go back." Her voice wobbled a little at the edge of her words, teetering between a dry relief and helpless regret. "We couldn't find Dylan," she whispered. "We were...I mean, we would've saved him, too, but..."

_But he's dead, _Fang thought. Maybe it was the medicine, or maybe it was Angel's sweet hands on his head, but this time the thought was...quiet. Numb. Like that dumb patch on his thigh from when he rescued Dylan for ter Borcht.

Angel's hand froze against his temple. "Oh." She bit her lip, looking away. Her fingers flexed and then spread out, sifting into his hairline, thumb pressing gently just above his ear. "I'm sorry," she whispered, gently running her fingertips through his hair.

He was suddenly struck by how much she was like Max in certain ways. Or like Val, when she was in 'mom mode.' The thin, cracked words that tumbled from his lips.

"You're gonna make such a good mom."

Angel shook her head and giggled nervously, rolling her eyes. "Fang, I'm only sixteen."

'Only' sixteen. Older than Max was when they began digging into Itex. The same age as Max had been when it was over. Angel wasn't really a kid anymore.

And he and Max would have gone down with the chopper if Angel and Gazzy hadn't been so focused during the rescue.

"I... I di'nt-" His words devolved into a coughing fit, phlegm scraping in his dry throat. Angel hurried to offer water. His throat finally calmed down with an impressive harrumph and a tired groan. His mouth felt like cotton. He was already on the cusp of sleep again.

"If you think it, I'll hear. Remember?" Her fingers combed through his hair, brushing it back again and again, so ridiculously soothing.

Fang exhaled, long and hot through his nose, and tried to keep his eyes open and trained on Angel. He needed to apologize. For writing Angel off as just 'one of the kids.' And for being so consumed with finding Max that saving the flock without her was a letdown. That Angel had to hear it in his mental space, like some nasty secret. That he'd made her cry.

Angel hummed softly and propped her hip on the side of Fang's bed. She touched his shoulder. "It's okay." Her voice cracked but she smiled softly. "I'm not upset anymore. Not really. We're all family, and I just forget sometimes that you and Max are more. I mean, you were always more, I guess, when you were together, but then you married her." She smiled kindly, squeezing his shoulder. "That's the way it's supposed to be, isn't it? You're _supposed_ to care most about Max. To do everything you can to fix it when she isn't safe. Wasn't that, like, in your vows?"

Fang tried to reach back, four years ago at their little ceremony, but all he could remember was how they ditched the reception early. And all the thinking was pulling him farther away from Angel. He was just so tired...

"It's probably 'cause the anesthesia in your system still hasn't finished burning off." Her hand trailed down his arm. "We'll be here the next time you wake up. Gazzy can babysit you next."

Fang's answering grumble died in his throat as he succumbed to sleep.

* * *

**A/N: **Please do take a second to review if you have any thoughts! This chapter and the next are a little different, in that I was trying to show moments where Fang is coming in and out of druggy sleep, not really sure where he is, not always remembering what happened right away. They are both short and they're meant to make you _feel._

This chapter, in particular, was meant to make you feel good things about Angel (once we get past Fang's initial panic). It was kind of a challenge to myself, because honestly I really don't care for her - I'd rather not read her, I'd rather not write her - but she's one of the flock, and she should be important. So here she is, offering kindness to a Fang who is high as a kite on hospital-grade narcotics.

**DntlssAnnabeth: **I'll be honest, I had to go look up 'antecedents' because I haven't used that word in a loooong time. I'm glad my writing is clear to you! That's something that I focus a lot of attention on, especially in scenes like the last one where there are so many characters and so much action is happening. It's important for them all to have a reason to be there, and that means giving them all things to do, which means so many pronouns get thrown around!

**Max-Without-Wings: **You wrote asking if I'm a professional stutter, and I'm not really sure what you mean to write, but I can tell you that I don't stutter! Haha. Thank you, I'm glad you like reading what I write! And do you see my username? _Fax_Fiction. This is not a story where Fang dies.

**Nola96: **I didn't! I wouldn't! Dylan's death was poignant. Killing Fang, too, would turn this into a Tragedy of a story. And I don't know what it is, but something about aging up Gazzy is different than aging up Nudge and Angel. Nudge's character feels big enough to fill an adult role. Angel being an adult height is a little different, but she's still a tall, skinny bird girl. But Gazzy turning into a young adult means ropier muscles and height like Fang and Iggy and a deeper voice and all sorts of things that can be hard to picture. I almost wish I'd had him appear more often in this story, so that I could take the time to make him big, you know?

**Lustrex: **I totally get that, about wishing Marty would have stuck around a couple seconds more to hurl some more insults. He did die pretty early on. It might be something I'll consider as I work my way back through. And yes, Max is suspended between Angel &amp; Nudge - Angel has her by the shoulders, Nudge has her by the ankles, and Max is flipping her lid between them. I'll see if I can clear that up, too, when I go back. And I'm SO glad you loved the Gasman here! I was working hard to give him a serious moment, where he was proving to Fang that he's grown up and he's capable. Like I told Nola, I wish I'd brought him out more in this story, because writing a nearly-grown Gazzy was unexpectedly heartwarming.

**WithoutWings: **No worries! Real life should always outrank FFN. Thanks for all my comments on the last chapter. I'm feeling really good about how it played out, and it's gotten really good reception so that's always a good sign. Bet you're glad exams are over!

**Guest: **I wish I had something better to call you, haha. And yeah, having Nudge ask about Dylan was a little heartwrenching to write. I'm glad it was a sad moment for you. There's so much else going on, Fang is in way too much pain to keep thinking about Dylan's death (it would have been silly for me to try to make him), but the rest of the flock knows that Dylan was supposed to be with him. _So where was he? _Angel and Gazzy were both given take-charge roles, Iggy's stuck outside of the helicopter, and Max is flipping her lid over Fang. So that leaves Nudge to remind us about Dylan.

**KLoves2Read: **Girl, we're almost at the end! Eeep!

**j4bb3rwocky: **I always appreciate your reviews. Even when they are surprisingly short (for you). I'd hoped you'd like the last chapter! Lots of action, and I focused strongly on the pacing and building the tension.


	34. Chapter 33 - Pain is Relative

**Author's Note: **Endless thanks to **KLoves2Read** for reminding me to talk about Dylan, even though Fang is still high as a kite on hospital narcotics.

This is short. Call it artistic.

* * *

**CHAPTER 33 – PAIN IS RELATIVE**

The second time Fang woke, it was to a chorus of murmuring voices.

And pain. A whole truckload of pain. Like someone had tied his intestines in a knot around his stomach before hooking him up to one of those limb-stretching torture devices until everything came apart like taffy.

"I can _so_ put 'kwanza' on a triple word score!"

"No proper nouns, you cheat!"

"Guys, seriously? Some of us care that Four's mom might not be dead."

"She's right, Ange, about 'kwanza.' She pulled that with me and I tried to bust her with the official dictionary. It's money in Angola."

Fang pried his eyes open, head flopping loosely. Gazzy was sitting in a chair, leaning over the other bed with arms folded and head stacked on top. Someone lay between him and Fang, sleeping on their side. It took a minute to register the dappled tawny feathers with the soft white smudges that peeked out from the covers.

_Max._

"Mac...," Fang tried. The sound didn't make it past his teeth. She wasn't moving. He couldn't help the spike of fear that made his heart monitor pick up.

"Mmmmack...sss...," he tried again. Better.

Gazzy looked over and broke out into a wide grin. "Hey, Fang!"

Fang tried to keep calm. The Flock was here, blurry and dull, but here. No one was freaking out. That was a strong indication that he shouldn't, either. But there was a weird edge to everything and he needed to just _touch_ her. Feel that her hand was warm. Hear the way her breath rasped softly as she slept.

"Fang's finally conscious?" Iggy's voice floated across the room.

Something clattered on the floor and Angel rose into view. She pulled Nudge up with both hands, laughing, "Help me move Max's bed."

Gazzy leaned over Max protectively. "Move her where?"

"Not out, just over!" Angel made a face at Gazzy, exasperated. "So Fang can reach her."

"Need help?" Iggy's voice was right overhead this time. Fang blinked up and saw two of him, weaving together and apart against eye-wateringly bright lights.

"We've got it." Nudge positioned herself at the foot of Max's bed as Angel &amp; Gazzy braced their hands under the middle and the head, ready to lift.

"How're you feeling?" Iggy squatted next to Fang, looking unusually serious. His milky eyes darted around Fang's chin, missing his eyes entirely. "Everyone said you're pretty banged up. The doctor's waiting until you and Max are both lucid to give the full run-down."

Fang's vision swam and he tried to focus on what Iggy was saying. Was there a question in there? He was still so tired, and his guts ached. Someone took his hand gently, straightening his arm and resting it over something warm.

"She only just came out of surgery." Nudge's voice, soothing-soft by his ear. "She wasn't as torn up as you. You looked like you went through a blender."

Fang flexed his fingers, feeling the warm body under the blankets under his hand. He could hear Max now, breathing softly with that familiar lilt in between air-out and air-in. He tried to lift himself up to see her better, to find her hand, just something, but the pain in his stomach redoubled and he collapsed with a groan.

Nudge frowned, chewing on her lip. "It's bothering you that bad?"

Fang's shaking fingers found the dip of Max's waist, grounding him. His voice was thick and scratchy. "Feels like an elephant's standing on my spleen."

Angel pulled the door open. "I'll go get the nurse."

Nudge slid around so Fang could see her, bumping into Iggy. "Sorry, Igs. Fang, do you remember? What happened?"

Fang's mind drifted off-balance, sifting through flashes of memory and dreams. Everything was out of order. There had been a cold night on a cold rock. Dylan's wing on the concrete. Max in a dog crate. A helicopter, propellers smashed to projectile bits as it was swallowed up-

"You were shot in the stomach. Doctor Akimoto said it entered through your abs and lodged in your liver. You're lucky it didn't hit anything worse, like your intestines or lungs or something."

Fang's eyes slipped shut. His stomach felt black.

Nudge was right. Not everyone was lucky enough to be alive.

Did anyone even know, besides Angel?

Smiling sweetly, Angel slipped back into the room with the nurse in tow. She was the same nurse from before, and Fang could see now that she even didn't look like Yume at all. Her nose was wider, her jaw narrower, and her eyes, a softer brown.

"Fang, this is Miss Ayumi-san. She's great, she's been sneaking us extra jello cups." Angel smiled encouragingly at the nurse, Ayumi, who's fingers trembled just barely as she injected something into Fang's IV.

Fang sucked in a sharp breath as a hot tingling spread up his arm. "Burns," he hissed, but it was quickly followed by cool numb.

"It's more pain medication," Nudge said, wrinkling her nose and sticking her tongue through her teeth. "I don't think they expected you to burn through it so fast!"

Fang's eyes were already drooping. He fingered Max's blanket softly, still trying to find skin. His body was already relaxing, his shoulders flattening back against the mattress.

Angel turned to Gazzy where he still hovered, next to Max's pillow. "Can you move the blankets so Fang can touch her better?"

Gazzy hesitated.

"Not that way, you perv, just give him her hand or something."

Iggy sniggered and patted Fang's head. "Rest up, Fangalator. Valencia's on her way and Max is still sleeping like a log. You've got time to kill."

"I love Momma Val," Angel chirped. She crossed her ankles and sat on the floor, the frilly peak of her ponytail barely visible over the foot of the bed. "She's just the best."

Nudge laughed. "Right? She still brings cookies into the office sometimes. That woman is a goddess."

"Here you go." Gazzy mashed Fang's limp hand against Max's and Fang pushed his fingers through hers. He could hardly feel it with the pain killers flooding his system, but just knowing she was there was good.

Nudge smiled down at him and weaved apart into two Nudges. Her lips were moving but the words were lost as Fang's world grew quiet again.

* * *

**A/N: **There, have a little blip of a chapter. There's not much new to say. All of the previous chapter's A/N comments apply here, too. This chapter (and the last, as best I could with Deep Angel Moments happening) was kept purposefully very short. Fang's just sort of rising to consciousness for a couple of minutes, seeing the change in the room, and then slipping back under.

**Nola96: **Awesome, I'm glad you liked Angel! I really did want to try to use her. Fang already had some great moments with Nudge earlier in the story, so it seemed like a good chance to let Angel have her moment with him. I didn't really get time to explore their dynamic better...the over-protective older brother that we see in...well, in early canon, I guess. Maybe in another story.

**WithoutWings: **I think I'm okay with how easy it was for the reader to figure out what's going on in the last chapter. I'm attributing it to one of those situations where the readers are able to perceive more than the narrator's (even if he's in third person) because they have the whole picture. Without the quick details that keep the reader on the level, I don't think I could have achieved the same feeling of senseless panic and avoided having it feel heavy-handed. It would have made it harder to transition from PANIC to calm, when Angel finally gets to him, if I'd written it in a way that made you believe Angel really was captive... Gosh, I don't know. I'm having fun defending my choice, haha, but it could have gone the other way, too, I guess. But I like what I did. I'm glad you still enjoyed it.

**j4bb3rwocky: **I did not even think of "relative" in the double-meaning sense. That's cool that it works that way. The title for this chapter doesn't do quite the same thing. As far as writing only Fax...well, don't write me off just yet. The longer I'm around, and the more I write, the bigger my ideas get. I don't have any ideas for stories that focus on "the kids" yet, but I'm at least more motivated now to include them on a level that matters in future fics, whereas previously, they barely even had faces when I pictured them.

**KLoves2Read: **I'm really partial to the money-vomiting Marty, too. I think there's something extra creepy about vomiting something that's not supposed to be in your body.

**DntlessAnnabeth: **Thanks! I enjoyed writing the Deep Angel Moments a LOT more than I thought I would when I decided to make myself do it.

**Lustrex: **Canon Angel has all sorts of issues...okay, she's virtually untouched by what happened to the flock at the school in a direct sense, but then her mind reading. She sees them dream. She hears them think about it. She was probably exposed to things the whitecoats wouldn't do to babies long before she had any frame of reference or level of maturity to understand what she was seeing. Which...geez, she should have been a complete sociopath. Completely desensitized to violence, because she'd have seen so much of it (albeit second-hand) through literally all of her formative years. Not to mention when she starts seeing the future, and can completely change what she looks like, and has gills, and talks to animals, and can mind-control people, and and and... Anyway, I don't actually know what it's like to wake up, disoriented like that, in a hospital. I mostly tried to channel days when I'm hopped up on cold medicine and wake up at three in the afternoon, fuzzy-hot and too weak to pick up even my phone, and then amplified it substantially. I'm glad you think it captured that feeling well!


	35. Chapter 34 - Debriefing

**Author's Note: **Apparently, longer chapters are a thing that I can do now. It almost makes me feel silly for how hard I worked to split chapters that got "too long" earlier in the story. Thank you to **KLoves2Read** for helping me find a balance between business-savvy lady and loving mom for Val, and everything else!

* * *

**CHAPTER 34 – DEBRIEFING**

The world behind his eyelids was bright vermilion rose. Scratchy sheets were plastered to his back, trapping sticky heat against his skin. He swallowed thickly and grimaced. His mouth tasted like ass.

"That's awesome, Gasman. Really."

"I'm serious, Max. You and me, we're gonna race. I bet I'm faster than you now."

"Now that you're a man, you mean?"

"Lay off, Angel!"

Fang needed the cool side of the pillow.

He tensed, rolling onto his side, and emptied his lungs in a long, low breath that made his knees curl into his chest. Most of his body felt hot and tingly with sleep, like he wouldn't be able to pick up a glass of water for another minute, but his back was another story. Like he'd been given a deep tissue massage with one of those spiky hammers people used on steaks.

Something squeezed his hand. He cracked open his eyes.

"Hey, you." Max was sitting up next to him, propped up on at least five pillows and smiling softly down at him. They were still holding hands across the crack between their hospital beds.

"Hey," he rasped.

Gazzy popped up on the other side of Max, still sitting in the chair at her bedside. "Fang! Welcome back to the land of the living!"

Fang saw Max's shoulders go rigid. She held his eyes intensely, face softening with compassion, and tightened her hand around his. She held her breath, eyes flashing, tugging Fang's hand toward her. He could practically see Dylan's death playing behind the concern in her eyes. Watch it happen all over again.

He forced himself to just look at _her_. At the way her eyes still looked rich and warm, even in the garish hospital lighting. At the way her hair looked, flowing lightly around her shoulders, finally clean and brushed out. He wondered if he had a sad little crease between his brows right now, the way she did. If the downturn of his lips said anything about how Dylan should have been there with them.

The doctor showed up a minute later with Dr. Martinez in tow. Val must have arrived while Fang was sleeping off his latest round of painkillers, because Max didn't look surprised.

Val, on the other hand, lit up when she saw that Fang's eyes were open. Her whole face softened as she looked at him, melting around the edges until all her wrinkles showed. Delicate lines fanned out from the corners of her eyes, framed her tender smile, furrowed across her forehead and twisting into a knot between her brows. It made her look younger, somehow, having those fine lines scattered across her face. Like she was more alive.

Fang could feel Val's kind eyes on him, even as he turned back to Max. He needed to keep looking at her or he was going to lose it.

She looked back at him like maybe she understood the ache in his chest, and he craved it. Even if she couldn't be as upset as he was, she was with him. She was slaying his loneliness.

He didn't look away from her until she squeezed his fingers and let him go with a thumbprint smudge smile, one corner of her lips turned up just so, comforting.

Dr. Akimoto introduced himself as the head of the trauma department at Fukuoka General. He had fine-combed hair and a face like an albino peach. Fang appreciated that his scrubs were dark blue instead of white.

Max settled back into her pillow tower. Her warm hand lay loosely in Fang's as Dr. Akimoto began working steadily through their charts. He was giving them the full run-down. Reciting the litany of wounds they'd amassed.

All Fang heard was a list of things that should have killed him.

The burn on his wrist had become infected and needed a skin graft.

In Gunther-Hagen's lab, Dylan's rib cage had wept with pus, outlined in the crisp, blackened edges of the scorched skin that had saved Fang from death by flames.

The pain in Fang's wing was caused by separated ligaments. It was far more complicated than a dislocation. Surgery was scheduled for the next morning.

On the flat rooftop, Dylan's wing had been literally ripped away. Separated ligaments, separated muscle, separated skin. No opportunity for reconstructive surgery. Even if he'd made it out, too, you couldn't reattach a limb like that. Even with magic healing spit.

The bullet that tore through Fang's stomach lodged in his liver. They had it in a plastic baggie, if he wanted it. (He didn't.) The blood loss had been catastrophic. He was very lucky, the doctor insisted, that the shot had missed his intestines and his lungs. His heart. That he was still alive.

Dylan's life had spilled out of the place where his stomach had been ripped apart, skin and muscle and bone peeled back. Fang and Max rolled right off the rooftop. Dylan had died.

Fang stared up at the foam board ceiling, counting tiles. The overhead light closest to the door flickered every few seconds, buzzing mechanically beneath the textured plastic cover. It was the one that was always on, even if the others were switched off. Fang wondered if it would keep him up at night.

The doctor was explaining the pins in Max's arm now. There was metal inside of her, all the way from her wrist to just below her shoulder. Some of it would eventually be removed, but some of it would be there forever. She was a bionic woman. They'd had to do a lot of minute reconstruction, the doctor said. Hollow bones shattered. Not a clean break or a couple of chips, like normal human bones.

Fang's breath rang hollow through his nose and he let his head fall to the side, away from the flock. His unfocused reflection stared back at him from the double-paned window that looked out into the hallway. His face was thin, gaunt, cheekbones pronounced under two days of stubble. A dark splotch blossomed across his puffy cheek where the butt of Marty's gun had cuffed him. His torn ear looked weird, sticking out with a point on the crest, swollen and scabbed. His eyes were dull, bleary and sunken, framed by drawn brows and puffy eyelids.

He looked different. Creepy. Sallow and empty.

But that was all right. It was better that he looked different. It would have been worse to look the same.

Max's grip suddenly loosened, her hand slipping away. Fang held her back by the tips of her fingers. She turned her face away from him instead, pressing her nose into her shoulder.

"It's not anything to be too concerned with, long-term," the doctor reassured. "You will simply need to take extra precautions for the duration of your natural cycle."

"Excuse me?" Fang's voice cut in, raspy and soft but enough to draw all eyes toward him.

Max flushed furiously, half-heartedly tugging at her hand in his. "Fang, leave it."

He curled his fingers around hers, drawing her hand back into his palm. She let him.

The doctor smiled kindly. "Your wife's blood work indicated a very high concentration of several drugs: progesterone, clomiphene, leuprolide, gonadotropin-releasing hormones-"

Fang's confusion must have rendered on his face. The doctor smiled sympathetically and rephrased, "Ms. Ride has been administered several common treatments for infertility at unprecedented levels. There is an extreme likelihood that you would end up pregnant as the result of any direct intimate contact. You will both want to take extra precautions until her ovulation returns to normal."

"Oh." Fang's mouth went dry, stomach heaving. Marty had brought it up, back in the helicopter. He'd known that attempting natural reproduction was part of why Genitex wanted Max. But to know that she was already pumped full of chemicals, primed and waiting to be impregnated, made everything in him revolt.

"Then again, given your unique genetic makeup and the uncertainty concerning the chances of a successful conception under normal conditions, this may be an opportunity to take advantage of."

"Bow chicka wow wow," muttered Gazzy.

Iggy snorted rudely.

"Oh-kay!" Val cut in. Her eyes flashed in Gazzy's direction. "Doctor Akimoto, thank you. I think we just need some time to discuss everything."

The doctor inclined his head politely. "I understand. Ayumi-san will be in shortly to begin preparing Mr. Ride for tomorrow's surgery."

The doctor left, the door falling shut behind him with a soft click.

Nudge picked slowly through the Scrabble tiles, dropping them one by one into the black velvet bag. Max's flush crept up her neck. She rocked a little, like she was evading his gaze. She sat up suddenly, pulling up her legs and resting her cheek on her knees.

Angel was worrying her lip with her teeth and watching Max intently. There was a certain kind of edge to her stare that made Fang wonder what silent conversation they were having. Angel answered the question before he could even ask it.

She rolled her eyes with a huff and turned to Val, breaking the silence. "What about Max's wings?"

Max's head shot up and she hissed through her teeth, flush deepening, "Angel!"

Angel gave her hard stare right back.

Nudge just looked confused. "What _about_ Max's- oh!" Her hand flew to her mouth, eyes wide. Max leaned forward, arms curled inward nervously, and shook her wings out, putting her ruined feathers on display.

"Oh, Max," Valencia whispered, posture falling slack. Max cringed.

Iggy's head weaved to the side. "Seriously, you guys? What's going on? Wanna help a blind guy out?"

Her voice sounded so small. So solemn. "Here, Igs." Max extended one wing, eyes locked on the blanket pooling in her lap. Angel took Iggy's hand and guided him to the bedside.

His fingers danced over soft feathers, his face a mask of concentration. He palpated the curved ridge, the sinewy muscles, the bones, finding them all intact. He was about to withdraw when Max jerked her wing higher. Her feathers brushed across Iggy's fingertips and his fingers curled under, discovering the choppy ends of her primary feathers, feeling the splintering ends of the shafts where they'd been hacked apart with dull clippers.

His hand drifted down, limp at the wrist. His voice choked with pity. "Max..."

"It's fine. Whatever." She yanked her wing back in and dropped Fang's hand to rake her fingers through her hair, scowling into her lap.

Val's lips were pursed as she stared, unfocused, at the wall behind them. The moment she took a breath to speak, she held everyone's attention. She nodded slowly to herself, choosing her words carefully. "Max, how often do you shed feathers? Do you know?"

Max's eyes darted up to Val's face, only for a second. "A couple a week, I guess. But usually it's just the little downy ones."

Fang's hand lay next to her, palm up and empty. His fingers twitched.

"What about the bigger ones? The secondaries and primaries?"

"Once or twice, that I know of."

Nudge watched, back and forth, and turned to Val earnestly. "You want to know if they'll grow back in, right? They do, it just takes a long time."

Fang eyed her skeptically. He couldn't remember losing any of his long feathers, and he definitely didn't keep track of how long the little ones took to come back in.

Max's eyes flashed but she didn't look up from her lap. She kept her voice even, trying to sound offhanded about it. "And you know this, how?"

Nudge shrugged self-consciously. "Once, when I was still a kid, when I hated my wings – I don't anymore, chill Gazzy, _jeezums_ – I got so mad once that I ripped one out. A big, fat, long one, right from the middle. It hurt so bad that it still makes me cringe. Like tearing a hangnail so it bleeds.

"As soon as I'd done it, I was so scared – scared that it would never grow back, scared that the others would fall out and I'd never fly again, scared that Max would find out – that I flushed it down the toilet and locked myself in my room and missed dinner. Only Angel knew, 'cause, you know, the mind-reading. I remember crawling to her room one night in a complete meltdown because it'd been two weeks and it didn't look like it was growing back, and I really thought I'd ruined that part of me forever.

"But I didn't. Obviously. You couldn't even tell I'd done it at all after three months, it's not like it leaves a feather-scar or a mark or anything." She fanned out the end of one wing, demonstrating, pinching one of her long feathers and wiggling it a little. "See?"

Max blanched. "Three _months?_"

"That's great, Nudge." Val was nodding again, looking far more encouraged than Max. "I think I'd like to wait until we're back in Colorado, Max, when your body's had some more time to recover. We can stop by the vet clinic and remove the first half-"

Gazzy sat tall next to Max. "_Remove_ them? That's supposed to be better?"

Val just nodded. "It is. We need to jump start regrowth. Primary feathers aren't replaced anywhere near as often as cover feathers, and they won't come back in until they've fallen out. As long as we can remove them without damaging the follicles, Max's body should be able to regenerate everything."

Max's breath hitched, softly enough that Fang was sure no one else caught it. Her voice sounded hard. "So you really think they'll grow back?"

"Eventually, yes. There's no reason why they wouldn't. It'll just take some time. We'll need to pick some strength exercises, Max, so your wings stay in shape in the meantime."

"Okay," Max nodded, rolling her lips between her teeth and settling shakily back against her tower of pillows. "Okay."

Her hand slipped back into Fang's. Her fingers twined with his, curling under around to press against the knuckles on the back of his hand. He held her tightly for a minute, pressing his thumb into the well of her palm, hoping it felt reassuring.

Max cleared her throat, chin popping up. "So, what about the hotbed of crazy scientists we've just unearthed? Interpol's cooperating with the CSM, right?"

Val pulled in a slow breath through her teeth. The words took a while to form, and when she did speak, the whole room quieted.

"It's gotten complicated."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Max shot back.

"Ooh, is it because of the Freeze?" Nudge worried. "I really need to get home so I can get back to work on that."

"Actually," Val stopped her, "we've made some headway on the virus. Once Fang told us that Dr. ter Borcht was the originator, one of our other IT heads was able to start chipping away at it. We definitely still need you, Nudge, but we're operating at a basic level at this point."

"Mom," Max called, "can we talk about one thing right now, please? An evil group of scientists commissioned kidnappings, held me hostage for half a month, and has plans for...for god knows what," she gestured to her stomach, flushing again but plowing ahead, "so what's complicated? Shut 'em down."

"Here's the thing, Max: There's no one to shut down."

"Uh...come again?"

Val sighed, long and weary. She sunk down into one of the blocky chairs with wooden arms and scrub-green vinyl upholstery that were scattered throughout the room. All eyes were trained on her, so Fang guessed she hadn't explained much of anything to anyone yet.

"Listen, Max: Nothing's tied to the location where you were held. There are no sales records for the property from less than forty years ago. The buildings are all empty. The company that allegedly built the newest facility was dissolved months ago and their records are lost. Fang told Nudge that a company called Genitex was responsible, but there's nothing to link them to what happened."

Nudge frowned. "What about ASIX? Fang had me look up the shoe factory where his backstabbing boss sent him. Genitex had their hands all over it."

Val shook her head. "We looked at that, but apparently the merger was never finalized. The CSM has a team there now, as well as on Gunkanjima, but if they were really there, they stripped everything down before they left. There's nothing."

"That's impossible! I looked them up like two days ago," Nudge insisted. She slid her phone out of her bedazzled back pocket and started typing furiously. Fang didn't get how she could type that fast on something without physical keys. "What the crap?"

Angel leaned over Nudge's shoulder with her lip between her teeth, watching Nudge thumb through article after article.

"I swear, it was here. Look, here's the CEO, Hayato Tanaki." Her fingers spanned the back of her phone as she held it at arm's length. Max leaned forward, squinting, and scowled.

"That's him. Steel-toed boot guy."

Fang remembered the pointed bruise across her ribs.

Valencia widened her eyes helplessly. "Well, he's clean. His company has no ties to any of our leads, and his alibi is watertight. He and his family were evidently at their condo on Oahu for the past two weeks. They've got receipts and flight records..." She heaved a worried sigh and fixed Max with a focused gaze. "You're sure it was him, mija?"

Max nodded sharply. "Definitely him. And more than once. He sure as hell wasn't sunbathing on white sands in his $300 suit."

Val blew a breath that made the loose hair that framed her face flutter. "I trust you, but there's not really anything to be done. This case is squeaky clean, Max. I don't know how he covered his tracks like that, but there's nothing that we can legally pursue him for. I'll make sure the CSM puts feelers out, but that's really all we can do right now."

"This blows," Gazzy muttered.

"And he wanted...what, exactly, with Max?" Iggy's hands splayed wide.

"Information, we think. Pure research, specifically about the genetics involved with you guys. The CSM's been getting anonymous requests for copies of the Itex research for months, and then they faxed over the threat to kill Max if we didn't deliver. I think it's clear now that they never had any intention of following through with that threat, considering the fertility treatments."

"They wanted me, too." Fang kept his face impassive as all eyes turned towards him. He felt his throat closing up and he hadn't even said the name yet. "And Dylan." He swallowed tightly. "When my boss found out he had wings, too, Marty pulled strings to fly us both out here. He was the guy they contracted to get us here." He was also the guy who had directed Fang's job for the past two months. The guy Fang saw every morning at the office. The guy who signed his paychecks.

"Psycho," Gazzy spat. "Good riddance."

Nudge and Angel started whispering. Iggy nodded, an angry scowl across his face.

Fang wanted to kick himself. He should have known, that first week when Marty showed up at _National_. Something should have tipped him off that his boss was trouble. If he'd known, he would have asked Max to run him through the CSM's system. If he'd known, maybe he wouldn't have let Dylan come.

Fang didn't like the way Val was looking at him, dark and quiet. Like she could see every sad thing that had ever happened to him written in ink across his forehead.

The light flickered.

"Fang, honey?"

It was coming. His grip on Max's hand tightened.

"What happened to Dylan?"

He could feel their eyes like spiders on his skin. Covering him, waiting for him to open his mouth so they could rush inside. He waited for the light to flicker again.

Max pulled her eyes away from him and addressed her mom. Her quiet voice settled over the room like a blanket of snow. "He didn't make it. We were almost there, on the roof, but he didn't...well, he couldn't... He didn't make it." She trailed off quietly. Her thumb pressed into Fang's palm, into the soft place between his bones, and then dragged out along the muscle. She did it again. Fang blinked hard, feeling his insides settle into stone, and tried to just feel Max's thumb against his slack palm.

Gazzy shifted uncomfortably, hands between his knees.

Iggy scratched the back of his neck and then let his hand hang there.

No one would look at Fang.

The light flickered.

Val looked like she might be sick. "It was a ghost town inside that building. Just bare furniture. Scuff marks on the tile. Trash barrels out from that looked like they'd held burning papers. But the roof..." She pulled the elastic out of her hair with shaky fingers. Dark waves fell around her face like a curtain. Her voice wobbled. "The roof was just a mess. We didn't know."

"I want the body."

Val's watery eyes locked with Fang's. She didn't bother hiding her surprise. "You've gotta understand, there's not much left."

Fang's heart beat hard inside his ribcage. He needed this. He didn't realize until just then how badly he needed this. "I want to bury him."

Val carefully pulled her hair back into a fresh ponytail. She took her time smoothing the bumps at the top. "Okay. Okay, I think I can make that happen." She gave him a tight smile and tugged her hair in two to tighten the elastic. "I'll try, okay, mijo?"

Fang nodded. Val promising to try was enough. If it could be done, she'd do it.

That was when Nurse Ayami came back, smiling sweetly at Fang and depositing an assortment of supplies on the table next to his bed. "To be ready for surgery in morning, okay?"

He watched down his chin as she refreshed the dressings over his stomach. He could just barely see the stitches, thick and black against swollen skin stained yellow with iodine.

Max shifted, lying down facing him and pulling his hand to her face. She searched his eyes. "I feel like dirt," she whispered, "the lowest of the low," her breath warm across his skin even as her voice cracked, "but I'm so glad it wasn't you."

He just closed his eyes and pulled her closer, arm shaking, and buried his face in her hair.

Then the nurse made him flip onto his stomach, ignoring his pathetic moan, and scribbled across his wing joint with a purple marker.

Max tried to distract him. "Gazzy finally got his power boost." She waited until he looked at her. "He's got super-speed, like me. He thinks he can beat me in a race." She gave a fluttering, sad little smile and rolled her shoulders. Her gaze dropped back to her lap.

"Hey," Fang whispered, grabbing her hand again. Their flock surrounded them, but for a brief second, it was just him and Max. "Mom said they'll grow back."

Max just wrinkled her nose, whispering back, "I'll believe it when I see it." Still, she looked like she felt better about it. He'd have to remember to watch her so he could pull her out of her head about it when she started making herself upset again.

"That's why you're alive, you know." Max's eyes flitted up and down between his eyes and their hands. "Gaz flew you over here like the freaking bullet train. And then he gave two whole pints of blood. They took a pint each from Nudge and Iggy, when the rest of us got here. You needed so much. And then Gazzy made them take one more as soon as he could stand without seeing spots."

Fang looked over at Gazzy where he sat, still right next to Max but leaning down over his knees to talk to Angel. His fingers curled around a wad of gauze taped to his palm. He looked like he hadn't seen a shower in too long.

He hadn't really been paying attention to Gazzy, just in general. They hadn't had a close relationship growing up, not like Gazzy had with Iggy, or Fang with Max. And now, he traveled so much for work, and the kid- well, Gasman and Angel stayed busy with classes. But he could see that Gazzy looked different. His shoulders had broadened considerably, and he was just as tall as Fang was at this point.

And there was the way Gazzy handled the rescue. He got Max out. He stayed behind for Fang. He took care of it.

Fang had severely underestimated him. It made him want to curl up and hide.

Gazzy caught his eye just then, shooting him a goofy grin. Fang tried to smile back, but Gazzy had already turned to Angel again.

He turned his head the other way with a sigh. He wasn't about to try turning onto his back again anytime soon. He debated asking for more pain medication, just so he could sleep until the surgery.

Iggy came over and collapsed in the chair next to Fang with a groan, arms flung loosely over the sides, head flopped back. He looked like he'd been wearing the same clothes for days.

His lips twitched across his teeth before he turned and pierced Fang with his milky stare. "I'm sorry about Dylan."

Fang just watched him tiredly.

"He seemed cool. Like he was the right person to have on your team." Iggy pulled both hands through his hair and sat up a little, looking serious. "I'm glad he helped you find her."

They lapsed into silence. It wasn't uncomfortable in a way that made Fang want to say anything, but it didn't help the grim slant in Fang's thoughts. He breathed slowly, feeling his breath roll across the pillow. He wanted a toothbrush.

The light flickered.

"I still haven't been home to see her yet." When Fang didn't answer, Iggy shifted until his whole body faced Fang, elbows propped on his knees. "Ella." The grin broke out onto his face like flowers poking up through snow. Like he couldn't hold it in, and didn't care to try. "I already have a ring. I've had it for a while, I've just been waiting. I don't know what for, so don't ask. But I'm gonna do it. She deserves that."

Fang smiled wearily, even though Iggy couldn't see it. "Congrats, man."

"You can thank me by standing by us when we take our vows."

Fang's smile felt a little more honest. "Of course."

Iggy nodded shortly, and that was that.

On his other side, Fang could hear Nudge talking with Max.

"I feel lucky that I've seen practically your entire story. That boy loves you so much."

He could hear Max's smile in the way her voice lilted at the end. "Yeah?" He felt her squeeze his hand softly.

"Uhm, _chya._ You should have seen him when he came storming into the office, when he realized you were missing and not just out for a fly. He'd have had his guns blazing, if that were a thing. He couldn't hop a plane to find you fast enough. And then I guess he found Dylan instead," Nudge's voice dropped to a whisper, "since they showed up together to break us out of Gunther-Hagen's crazy setup."

Max squeezed his hand again. "Yeah, well, I want the whole story at some point. I've only heard bits and pieces so far."

"Of course! Maybe later, though. Angel's been waiting to get another chance to beat me at Scrabble, so..."

"It's fine." There was a soft kissing noise and then a light rustling as Nudge slipped back onto the floor and pulled a new set of Scrabble tiles.

Fang smiled and turned onto the other cheek so he could face Max, rolling his head back into his shoulder when he felt the sharp kink.

Max was sitting up, looking down at her repaired arm, running her thumb over her fingertips with the barest hint of a smile on her face.

"You're awfully quiet."

She glanced at him. "Hmm? Oh." She laughed softly through her nose, eyebrows arching, but squeezed his hand. "I'm just enjoying this. Our family."

Fang hummed in response. It caught in his throat, low and gravely, so he swallowed it back down.

"What about you?" She teased, "You're a real Mister Chatterbox over there."

She was still smiling, but there was a certain tightness at the edges, a particular intensity to the way she was gripping his fingertips. She was worried for him.

He just shook his head, scratching the front of his neck and letting his other arm fall limp over the side of the bed. He'd rather just listen. Try to focus on something besides the way Dylan's death kept pulling at his thoughts like gravity.

How was it possible to feel someone's absence like you'd lost your right lung when you lived for eight years without realizing you were missing anything at all?

The bullet wound was nothing.

So Fang listened. He tried to keep track of the Scrabble games. He listened to Gazzy push Max to agree to race him when she could fly again. He could hear snatches of the audio book playing on Iggy's ear buds while he napped in one of the chairs. He even helped Angel study, holding flashcards for Bandura and Piaget and Freud and promising not to look at the answers until she'd guessed already. So she couldn't read it in his mind, she'd said.

He reached compulsively for Max's hand every time she took it away.

And every so often, his thumb would wander over that numb patch on his thigh and he'd press down into the unfeeling flesh, letting himself think about Dylan until his thumb was red past his knuckle. The pink thumbprint lingered long after he let go.

The light flickered.

* * *

**A/N: **Thank you to everyone who's taking the time to read and review. You are wonderful, and SUCH an encouragement. My writing is getting better with every chapter, and it's because of you! Giving me feedback, letting me know what I need to work on, letting me know what I'm doing well! So thank you.

**pancakes-for-you: **Thanks for dropping a note! The sequence of climax chapters was a blast to write, with so much action and so many characters. I'm glad you've enjoyed them.

**Nola96: **Yeah, I'm really fond of the short chapters. It's fun to be able to do something a little more...I don't know, stylistic? All of the big plot points are through, we're wrapping up, we're losing momentum. So it feels like there's room for me to get creative with some of it, in a different way than I could when the focus was driving the plot forward.

**thestupidgenius1123: **Ahahahah, I made you cave. That alone is quite a compliment, missy. I'm glad you're loving it! The more I write the flock, the more I enjoy it. They're _hard_ to write - there are so many characters, and I try not to leave anyone out, and I always feel like i'm juggling water balloons - but when I can work the scene out just right, the end result is really satisfying.

**Lustrex: **Did this answer your craving for a longer chapter? I almost hit 5k words. And the final chapter exceeds 5k. There's a lot of ground to cover, and I didn't realize it until I got here, but I think I'm covering everything. And I'm not too sure about Angel's powers! She's not figured prominently in this story, so I didn't put much thought into her mind-reading and the rules behind it. I think I'll have to, though, for the stories that I will work on next, since she will be a bigger player in them.


	36. Chapter 35 - What Val Knew (Reprise)

**Author's Note: **Thanks to **KLoves2Read** for doing the beta-reading work that made this chapter possible.

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**CHAPTER 35 – WHAT VALENCIA KNEW (REPRISE)**

Max gave up two days ago. Trying to get him to talk about it. Trying to pull him out of his head.

"I just need you here," he'd told her, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, settling her against the crisp fabric of the scrubs that Val had brought for him. Max, too. She was sprawled across the crease where their hospital beds were shoved all the way together, the soft scuff of fabric mingling with her soft breathing as she shifted against his chest.

"As long as you tell me when you're ready to talk," she'd warned. She wore a gentle smile, but he could tell she hadn't quit worrying. It was written in the way her fingers drew the lazy circle across his chest again and again. In the way her eyes stayed on him a few seconds too long. In the way she tried to let him be, but ended up complaining to him again about how Val had brought her a set of powder pink scrubs to wear, and how come he got navy blue ones?

She could complain about scrubs all day long if it meant she stopped prodding Fang to talk about it. She was wearing him down and he was so close to giving in, to spewing everything that hurt. How _culpable _he felt. But he wasn't _ready_.

He just needed time to think. That was all.

The Flock had stayed for a few days, but they all had separate lives now. Iggy was itching to get home to Ella. Angel and Gazzy had their exams coming up. Nudge still had her work cut out for her at the CSM. Once it was sure that Fang's surgery was successful and that he and Max would be cleared to go home before the weekend, the rest of them made travel arrangements and cleared out.

That was when Max got restless. She took to leaving the room to bother the nurses and abuse the 24-hour cafeteria. Fang didn't blame her – between the empty room and his dull mood, it wasn't like her cabin fever was a shock. And it was nice to get a break from pretending to have it together. Not like she was oblivious to his dark mood, but still.

Val had stayed in Japan, pulling long days out in Nagasaki with the CSM crew and then staying overnight in Max and Fang's room at Fukuoka General Hospital. She'd shrugged and put her 'I'm-your-mother-and-I-know-what-I'm-talking-about face on. "It's cheaper than staying in a hotel."

Max had snorted. "Stop trying to justify this helicopter parent shtick you're on. You just can't stand to leave us alone longer than you have to."

Val shrugged again, an unashamed smile tweaking the corners of her mouth. "With the rental car, travel isn't too bad, either."

She'd also brought a computer for Fang. He'd sat up for the first time in days (only halfway, with a substantial stack of pillows), his brows drawn down with determination as his fingers flew across the keys.

He wanted it to rescue him from his thoughts, but it didn't help anything. He couldn't come up with words that felt important enough to write down. He couldn't stop thinking about the awful unfairness of death long enough to read anything worth reading. And he couldn't read anything light without wanting to hell-murder the screen over the blissful ignorance that painted social media.

OnThursday, he watched the entire first two seasons of _Lost_ with the sound off, staring dimly as Jack fought to keep the island together and wondering, if he hadn't brought Dylan along, if he'd made him stay home, if he'd just held onto his eight-year-deep grudge and refused his company in Japan...if he'd still be dead.

Then Max would poke her head back in, goofy grin outshining her nervous eyes, and say, "I'm not done wandering yet, but do you need anything? A jello cup? Help taking a shower? I just wanted to check..." She couldn't have seen much of the hospital, because she was never gone for more than ten minutes.

He'd force a smile, shaking his head and tilting his chin up to meet her puckered lips. And then she'd flounce back out, cursing loudly when she thwacked the elbow of her hard cast against the doorframe, and Fang would be stuck fighting off wave after wave of nausea, so insanely relieved that she was alive and completely insanely miserable that it was at Dylan's expense.

More and more, he wanted words so he could try to start letting Max in. The loneliness of it crawled like ants across his chest, but his tongue stayed still.

Their last night in the hospital, Fang grappled unsuccessfully for sleep. Max snored quietly next to him, a soft, feminine snarl that hooked at the end of each breath. He fidgeted next to her for what felt like hours, trying to keep his eyes shut.

He must have dozed off because the next time he opened his eyes, Dr. Martinez was sitting in the chair next to him, face washed blue from the screen of her laptop, typing sloppily with eyes half-closed.

He must have shifted because she gave a start, clutching the laptop monitor and jerking her head towards him with panicked eyes.

"Oh!" She resettled the laptop atop her thighs and laughed nervously, bringing her voice down to a whisper. "Oh, god, Fang. You startled me."

"Sorry." He extricated his arm from beneath Max's head, carefully so she wouldn't wake, and shifted on his side to face Val. "Can't sleep."

She eyed him thoughtfully. He wondered if she could see past the way his body looked almost healed, all the way down at his heart, which wasn't.

"Wanna talk about it, mijo?"

That was all it took. The words spilled from his lips before he could catch them. "It won't stop hurting."

The admission hung stiff in the air between them, making him sweat. He wished he could gather everything up and swallow it back down. He settled for clamping his mouth shut and staring at the scuffmarks along the base of the wall. Why were the bedcovers so hot? He toed the edge of the sheets up over his ankles.

Val closed the laptop with a click and slid it onto the table, inching her chair quietly across the waxed floor until she was sitting right by him. They were quiet together for a minute, Fang still staring off into space, Val observing him thoughtfully.

"Have you talked to Max about it?"

He gave the barest shake of his head, grinding his teeth together.

"What about Iggy? You know he wants to help."

"They don't get it," Fang whispered huskily, still staring at those scuffmarks. He rubbed his toes together. "No one really gets it." They didn't feel what he felt.

Val hummed softly, her voice, gentle. "You spent more time with him than the rest of us. You got to know him in a way that the others never did. Now you're the one who _gets_ to care."

He chanced a look up at her. Her head was leaning gently to one side, her wide brown eyes looking down on him kindly. Max's eyes, but softer around the edges. Telling him that his pain was a privilege.

He frowned deeply and looked away again. Talking with Val was bringing everything back to the surface, fresh and hot. He felt his eyes well up, and he sniffled as softly as he could so he wouldn't knock any of them down onto the pillow.

God, he did not want to cry in front of Val. Not again.

He felt her eyes on him like a hot iron. It was another minute before she spoke again.

"You know it's not your fault, right, Fang?"

He sucked in a breath through his teeth, heat growing behind his eyes. How did she get so deep like that, on the first try?

"But if I hadn't-"

"It's not," she insisted.

"But if I'd just-"

Her hand clasped his shoulder and she ducked her head to look him in the eyes. "You're not that important."

Holding her gaze was almost painful. His watery eyes darted back and forth between hers. She was looking at him seriously, softly, pinning him down with her Mother Max eyes.

His voice sounded small, like a child's. He _felt_ small. "If I hadn't-"

"If you hadn't what, mijo?" she challenged.

He swallowed thickly and turned his face into the pilled sheets. Each breath sounded harsh against the fabric, like his lungs were trying to claw their way out, away, to a peaceful escape where no one would make him _think_ about this.

Val's hand remained on his shoulder, her thumb gently massaging the muscle. Max found him again in her sleep and stretched out against his back, her warm breaths on the nape of his neck making his skin prickle. They sat there like that, the three of them, quiet in the dim light of the flickering fluorescent. Fang lay still at least ten minutes before he'd gathered his thoughts.

His voice was muffled in the bed sheets. "Dylan worked really hard to forget about Max. To rise above it. To be better than what Gunther-Hagen made him to be." His fist curled in the sheets and he felt his throat closing up with guilt, warping his words so he had to fight to spit them out. "But _I_ pushed him. _I_ dragged him out here with me to find Max. _I_ made him Look for her. And then he _died_."

Val clutched his shoulder tightly. "First, that's completely loco. _You_ did not _drag_ him along. He chose to help you, every step of the way. Even when you weren't sure about him." She leaned against him lightly, trying to coax his face out of the mattress. "Second, you're looking at it all wrong."

Fang snorted into his pillow but peeked up at her anyway.

She lifted an eyebrow. "When he was fresh from the test tube, all he wanted was to get you gone. To do whatever he thought he had to in order to win Max's affection. He couldn't do anything else but that. But he went away. He grew up. And this time, he made the _choice_ to fight for _both_ of you. He chose to help a husband," she tapped his shoulder and tipped her head toward Max, "find his missing wife. Him dying was sad, awful, unjust, but it also saved you. I really don't think he did it because of the pull Max has on him. I only met him twice after he came back, but it was obvious in the way he handled it. He was helping you because it was right."

Fang gulped, eyes flitting between Val's earnest ones. He could hear the truth in what she was saying, if he just shut down his guilty spiraling. He'd seen it, played out in the way Dylan always spoke with kind, measured respect.

Even when Fang was a complete asshole.

Dylan was _good_ all the way through. He was a better friend than Fang deserved and a better help for finding Max than Fang could have wanted. And he did it, even though Looking for Max after so many years of _not_ Looking hurt him in ways that Fang still didn't completely understand.

Val watched him with a measured stare. She smiled softly and ruffled his hair with her fingertips. "You okay, mijo?"

Fang sighed, deep and heavy, letting his eyes fall shut again. "I'm alive."

"You are. And so is Max." He heard the low squeal of the vinyl seat and then Val was clasping his face between her hands, kissing him between his eyes. "You did good, mijo. Really. Now rest, huh?"

Fang willed himself to settle down. Max's body curved along his spine, her little snarl snore ruffling his feathers. Val's hand in his hair was soothing, drawing slow circles across his scalp and making him lengthen his neck like a cat leaning into a particularly good petting session. She was whispering to him softly. A lullaby.

"You're safe now. You're okay. You did it. Everything's going to be okay."

Everything slowed, softened, pulled apart like sun-warmed taffy, and Fang finally slipped into real sleep.

Val left to catch her flight the next morning, just a few hours before Max and Fang would be discharged. They were alone.

Fang was staring at the ceiling with the barest smile on his face, reveling in the quiet of his thoughts after his talk with Val. His hand drifting over the numb patch on his thigh and he let his eyes droop shut.

Max turned into him, scooting closer until she must have been wedged right in the crease between the beds. She pulled her knee on top of his, swirled her fingers across his chest, and looked at him across the scruffed plane of his cheek.

"You keep touching that spot," she whispered, eyes glancing down to his hand on his thigh, "but there's nothing there."

She fell silent. Waiting.

Fang turned to press his lips to her forehead, lingering for a breath. There was a soft click as he kissed her. Max's warm breath ghosted across his neck, a warm little cloud of her life trapped against his skin. He could linger there for days.

Eventually, he felt her shift, her fingers trailing across his chest to his bicep, grazing the soft spot on the inside of his elbow before catching his hand in hers. Her thumb traced his, catching on the knuckle, dragging along the bones until she was pressing, too. Into the numb.

It was weird to have someone else touch it. That is, it didn't _feel_ at all.

She finally asked, the words drifting lazily across his clavicle, "What happened?"

A million answers flew through his mind. About ter Borcht. About fear. About Dylan. The whole story.

He took a deep breath, lungs filling until his chest pressed against her. She snuggled deeper into him. It made their hospital room feel like the safest place in the world.

And he told her.

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**A/N: I'm so close to the end. I thought I would be more sad about it than I am, but you guys, I have such cool story ideas planned that I'm more excited about starting new projects than I am sad about finishing this one! There's only one chapter left. No epilogue planned. The final chapter _was_ the epilogue, until I figured out how to make it plot-relevant! That said, if there's anything you're left wondering about or want to see tied up, let me know now or forever hold your peace.**

**Nola96: **The more I write the flock, the more I enjoy writing them. I still feel like I'm juggling when I do it, but I guess I've had enough practice now where it's not such a disaster, haha. This chapter is the last Val &amp; Fang moment of the story, so I hope it was satisfying. They've been unexpectedly fun to write together.

**DntlessAnnabeth**: You're okay, no worries! You know if there's something important that you wanted to comment on, you can always go back and comment from the previous chapter. Or double up your comments in a single review. Or PM me!

**KLoves2Read: **Oh my gosh, _dreaming_ about Out of Sight? That's crazy! Are you sure you _want_ to be afflicted with my future projects? (Haha, just kidding, stay, please, I need you!)

**Lustrex: **Thanks for all the notes on the previous chapter. As far as the POV misstep with Val coming in the room...yeah. Yeah, I did that. It was one of those last-minute efforts to edit in something I'd forgotten, and I was doing it while tired because MRF totally screwed with my sleep all week, and then I was just too lazy to fix it. Baaah. I'll look at it when between now and Wednesday. I think I'll also try to address the way Gazzy's grown up throughout, since a lot of people are having trouble picturing him. Maybe that's not my fault so much as that it's just hard to lift him out of that eight-year-old goofball role, but I can at least try!

**WithoutWings: **No worries! You're always welcome to tell me what you think I can do better, and I don't mean to discourage you from that. It's just so rare that I'm confident enough in a decision that someone's called out to make a defense for it!

**Guest: **Happy tears, I hope. Thanks for the review!

**FINAL CHAPTER ON WEDNESDAY**


	37. Epilogue - Ashes in the Wind

**Author's Note: **Beta-read by the lovely **KLoves2Read**. Every chapter. You rock, lady!

This is the end.

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**EPILOGUE – ASHES IN THE WIND**

It had taken two and a half weeks to get Dylan back on US soil. Customs apparently had a harder time processing a person when the only thing left of him was a sun-baked cracker that had to be scraped off the concrete roof with a palette knife.

In the end, Dylan had to be cremated before he could leave Japan.

Now, his powdery remains were wrapped in a clear plastic baggie, safely tucked into the little stock-brown cardboard box balanced on Fang's lap.

Fang was folded in half over his knees, head and shoulders wedged under the passenger-side dash, rooting through his corner-worn duffel bag.

"You sure they're in here?" he called, straining to be heard over the engine of the muffler-free vehicle Max had commandeered while their wings healed.

"Positive. I have the jerky and the gummy sharks and the box of Honey Bunches in my bag. The granola bars wouldn't fit, so I had to put them in yours."

Fang extricated himself from the cramped space in front of his knees, spine popping. He reached over his shoulder to shove his knuckles into the stiff muscle around his wing. "Can't find 'em, babe. You'll have to look when we get there."

"What? No. Did you check the little half-pocket thingies on the side?"

He hitched a brow. "For an entire box of granola bars?"

"Yes! Ugh, I swear I remember putting them in there." She hunched over the steering wheel, glaring at the road and blinking furiously as she thought. "I remember 'cause I had to go back to the kitchen for your anti-inflammatory stuff – yes, they're the heavy-duty ones – and I put the brand new box of Chewy bars on the counter right next to...next to..." She trailed off, slowly sitting back against the seat until her head pressed into the headrest. She huffed through flared nostrils, jutting her chin out petulantly.

Fang watched her for a second, smirking. He twisted around to snag Max's pack off the back seat, his voice floating up to the front. "You didn't pack them, did you?"

"Mmm...nope. Have to go for somethin' else. Oh, hey, would you grab me- yes, that, thanks, babe!" She grinned easily and plucked the offered snack pack of tropical-flavored Sharkie Sharks from his open palm.

Fang kept rooting around until he found a packet of trail mix. The good kind, with M&amp;Ms. He shoved the duffel bag back onto the seat and eased himself back to the front, catching Dylan before the box with his ashes could slide off his knees. His muscles pinched sharply.

He rotated his shoulder carefully, evaluating. He could still kind of feel the repaired ligaments under his skin, knotted and bulging with scar tissue. He clenched his wing reflexively, testing the dull ache, and tamped down on the thought of being in the air in a month. No use working himself up over being earth-bound for another five weeks. He'd finally started exercising his wing, stretching it out as far as he could a few times a day. It only extended halfway before everything tightened up, which still freaked him out. When he asked Val, though, she assured him he was doing great. He just had some more work to do.

It was still a better prognosis than Max. She was months away from tasting sky, still. The feathers that Val had removed once they were home had only just started to come back in. Max kept saying she didn't even want to _look_ at the clouds until her second "featherotomy."

But more than once now, Fang had walked in on her hovering at their bedroom window, cheek leant up against the glass, completely zoned out. Looking at "nothing," she'd tell him, but her eyes were always hard with determination when she came back to him.

Max gnashed down onto a red shark, looking completely blissed-out. Her lips curled in an ironic smile. "We've gone soft, Fang. We can't even make a half-hour drive without clawing for food like animals."

Fang crunched loudly into a pretzel, rolling the malty saltiness around with the M&amp;M melting on his tongue. "We have solid grounds for claiming amnesty," he pointed out before swallowing. "Ten minutes in the air is nothing. Driving makes it an epic trek."

She laughed through closed lips and glanced at his lap. At Dylan-in-a-box. Her face softened. "We even have an epic quest to complete." She smiled wistfully and let go of the steering wheel with one hand, twining her fingers around his.

"Max," he warned.

"It's fine, shut up."

A second later, the car swerved to the right and she ripped her hand from his, gripping the wheel with white knuckles.

"Don't laugh at me, you jerk!" But she was laughing, too, even when she smacked him on the shoulder. "It's not like I've had a lot of practice. And once I'm back in the game, I won't have to drive anywhere ever again."

"Never say never."

"Okay, Ms. Frizzle. We'll let _you_ learn to drive the damn magic school bus."

Fang tossed another handful of trail mix into his mouth, making a goofy face at Max with a scrunched nose and highball eyebrows, trying to keep pretzel crumbs locked behind his smile.

He felt lighter than he'd thought he would after the wake. Like he was finally able to breathe without survivor's guilt.

Val's words of wisdom in the hospital had helped. And he'd kind of had his own private memorial for Dylan when he and Max got home from Japan, looking forward to another few days off work and their own bed to sleep in.

They'd seen the mess as soon as they walked in. Max had stopped mid-laugh, quieting herself down and brushing her hand down his arm. She helped him put the couch back together, carefully gathering up the clothes Fang had lent to Dylan.

When they reached the kitchen, she'd kissed him hard, handed him a sponge and some bleach, and left him alone with the dried mess of egg on the counter. He took his time, buffing perma-set egg white off the countertop, picking bits of shell out of the mess with the edge of his thumbnail, accosted with the still-bright memory of Dylan ruining eggs in Fang's kitchen with a smile on his face.

Fang had scrubbed until his eyes burned from chemical, fingers numb and shaking. He watched the residue slip down the sink drain and tipped forward on his elbows until his forehead pressed against the squared faucet.

He'd stood there, bent over the stainless steel basin with the green and yellow sponge dangling from his red fingertips, until the faucet had left a pink mark and the bones in his elbows pinched his skin against the edge of the counter.

He'd rinsed the bleach from his hands and padded quietly into his bedroom.

And there was Max. Curled up in sweatpants and a tank top, with the entire comforter twisted around her. She was sprawled in the middle of the bed, her broken arm draped across his pillow possessively.

Back where she was supposed to be.

He'd shut the door carefully, leaving his grief in the kitchen for the night and letting the wave of contentment wash over him. They were finally together, home, quiet, safe. His heart was so full of her that he thought he could drown in it. That he could breathe it for the rest of his life and never be quenched.

He hadn't been able to keep his eyes off her. He'd leaned on the bathroom doorframe as he brushed his teeth, shamelessly watching her sleep and letting steady assurance worm its way into the sore places in his heart. She was home. She was safe. He couldn't help his sentimental smile when she wrapped her hand tighter in the covers he was trying to reclaim.

That night, spooning loosely with Max in their own bed, he'd slept harder than he could ever remember.

Something sharp squirmed through him, yanking him out of the memory. He let out an embarrassing shriek, jerking to the side.

"Earth to Fang," Max sang. "C'mon, don't disappear to Fang-land yet. We're almost there."

He clutched his side where she'd poked him and tried to remember how to breathe. It felt like everything in his bum wing had popped all at once. Or like he'd torn stitches, except all his stitches had already been removed, so it was probably fine. Probably.

It took her a second to notice the way his face was screwed up in pain. "Oh! Oh, gosh, Fang, I'm sorry...it's just, you weren't...weren't answering..."

"S'Fine," he wheezed, slowly straightening. "It's fine," he tried again, forcing his normal tenor.

Max wrinkled her nose at him and pet his side with loose, brushing fingers. "Sorry, baby."

"Yeah, now guess who's getting thrown in the lake first?"

She laughed at that, right from her belly, like it was the funniest thing she'd heard all day.

He grinned.

Forty-two minutes dragged by before they parked at the overlook, after Max drove past it going both ways. It took another twenty-seven to hike through the forest to get to the lakeside.

Max strode ahead with her nose in the air, her thumbs jammed into the thick black straps cross-crossed over her chest as she hauled both their duffel bags through the woods. Fang had told her his shoulder didn't hurt so much that he couldn't carry his own stuff, but she'd just crossed her arms and cocked an eyebrow and pinned him with those big brown eyes.

So Fang carried Dylan. He held the flap-top box in front of him with two hands, watching his feet carefully and looking forward to the moment when they'd be able to fly out here like usual, instead of wading through scratchy, scrubby brush with twigs that kept snapping into his face.

Eventually, he caught the scent of the mineral-rich lake, followed closely by the sound of the water lapping gently at the pebbled bank. It was a relief when they finally broke through the trees.

"Can you believe it's only been two months since we brought the birthday party out here?" Max dropped the duffel bags in a heap at her feet, up the bank from the lake's edge. She yanked one leg up by the heel of her sneaker and wobbled on one foot, wings flared behind her for balance, and started picking sticky green burrs off her ankle.

Fang took his sweet time unrolling the sleeping bags, unzipping them both completely and laying first one, then the other on top of a relatively pebble-free patch of the bank.

"It feels like it was a whole 'nother life time," she went on. She flicked a sticker off her thumbnail and plopped down on the edge of a big, flat rock to peel her shoes off. "Or like everything that's happened since was a really long, ugly dream."

Fang bent to retrieve Dylan from where his box balanced on top of his bag. He carried him tucked against his stomach as he clambered onto the rock to sit next to Max. Her cool hand slid over his bare knee, fingering the hem of the shorts he'd thrown on when they stopped at home after the wake.

"Didja write your best man speech yet?"

Fang watched as she peeled her socks from her feet, leaving them inside out and tossing them in the general direction of her shoes but missing terribly. He shook his head. "I told Gazzy he could do it. He's better at story-telling."

She cocked an eyebrow at him. "Then what's the point of you being Iggy's best man? You're not even going to try to take advantage of this prime opportunity for public humiliation?"

He smiled slyly. "I have my ways. Trust."

"Alright, hotshot. I'll believe it when I see it." She grinned and shook her head, laughing softly. "Why Ella wanted _me_ to plan her baby shower, I have _no_ idea. I think she felt bad that she made Brigid the maid of honor for the wedding."

"Matron." Fang dipped his head to place a deliberate kiss under her jaw, his words washing across her skin. "You're not a maiden, babe."

"Was I ever a maiden?" She waved her hand impatiently and shoved him away. "I don't care, either way. Nudge is helping me do most of it anyway. Which is nice. She knows about all the stupid little stuff, like themed snacks and decorations and whatever. She's got her Pinterest board, and I just have to say yea or nay."

Fang reached for, enveloping her small hand in his, and pulled it to rest on the rock between them. Her head titled down, looking at their intertwined fingers. Her other hand came around to trace the shiny ripples that webbed across the top of his wrist in a peachy swath. The skin was still pretty mangled from the flamethrower. The skin graft had gone really well, the doctor said, but the damage wouldn't ever be completely erased.

It had healed, but it would never be the same.

Fang ran a thumb under the thin edge of the box lid, lifting just enough for the flap to catch at an angle.

"I'm really proud of you, you know." Max stopped touching his wrist and wedged her fingers between her thighs instead, leaning carefully against Fang's arm.

He looked down his cheek at her, waiting.

"Watching you handle everything, hearing you talk about Dylan the way you do, it's like this is your second chance. A do-over, after Ari, you know?" Her fingers flexed between his, squeezing his knuckles. "I keep thinking about that. About how hard it was for you to accept him after everything he did to us. And how he died before you ever got the chance.

"But with Dylan, you got the chance to really _know_ him, and you took it. You guys got to be friends, in the end. I'm really proud of you for that."

Fang shook his head, growing still. "He's the one who decided to be friends. He's the one who hung around until I pulled my head out of my ass."

Max wobbled her head from side to side, acknowledging. "Okay, so maybe he made the first move. Maybe he got there before you did. But you came around. It seemed like you guys made a really good team."

Fang could feel her smiling against his arm and hummed low in his chest. "We did."

Her smile relaxed. Her weight on him increased as she slouched against him. "I wish I could have seen you guys together."

Fang let go of her hand to his arm around behind her, pulling her close by the waist and looking out across the lake. "It would have been hard on him. To be near you."

"Maybe," she conceded. "I still wish it, though. I wish it didn't have to be that way."

"Me, too." He turned to brush his lips against her eyebrow, kissing the very corner of her eye. She turned her face to meet him, locking her lips with his and breathing right against his skin, warm and cinnamon and everything good.

When they pulled apart, Max's hand had joined his on the smooth cardboard box in his lap. They looked down at it together.

"Do you think... Should we say something? Some final parting words of wisdom?"

Fang shrugged, watching her fingers spread across the box top. "We had the wake."

"Yeah. But there were a lot of people there. More than I expected, but I guess Dylan was the kind of guy to make friends with everyone."

Fang shrugged again.

They fell quiet, surrounded by the hush of the lake water and the occasional splash of a fish. Max's index finger curled and uncurled, her stubby nail scraping along the cardboard softly.

"There's not a lot of wind. Are you sure you don't want to wait? Maybe until you can get up in the air again?"

Fang shook his head, wrapping his fingers around the bottom of the box. "I want to do it now."

"Okay." She watched him carefully lift the lid. There was the bio-bag, wadded tightly with cellophane tape that cinched the bright red bio-hazard graphic into a bulging hourglass. Inside was a grainy, bone-white powder.

"Do you want privacy? I can go, uh, dig out the jerky for dinner?"

"No. Stay." Fang dropped Max's hand and lifted the bag out of the box, placing the empty container carefully next to him. He wasn't exactly sure how he was supposed to do this. He just wanted it to feel important.

He picked at the tape carefully, trying to separate it from the plastic.

"I should have thought about bringing scissors," Max whispered. She shrieked when the tape tore the bag wide open, spilling some Dylan onto Fang's lap. "Fang Fang Fang! Oh my _god!_"

His fist had already closed, clamping the whole thing tightly, saving most of the contents.

Max had vaulted up onto her knees next to him and had her nose buried in his shoulder. She was shaking.

Fang twisted, trying to see into her face. His black shorts were powdery with Essence of Dylan. Max was trembling against him. His heart beat hard against his ribs. "You okay, Max?"

That was when she snorted, promptly devolving into a giggle-fit against his shoulder. Fang tried to get his heart to slow, hefting a relieved sigh through his nostrils and trying to relax.

Once she'd settled down, he looked at her mock-seriously. "You good now?"

"Yep, hah. Sorry...hee..." She didn't look sorry at all.

Together, they turned back to the baggie fisted in front of Fang. His palm covered the massive rip, dust peeking out through the cracks between his fingers.

"Maybe... Maybe if you, you know, sort of pour it into your hand... And hold it up to the wind?"

Fang's brows knit together. "What wind?"

Max squinted hard up at the late afternoon sky. "It's kind of blustery, every once in a while. You can just lift it to the sky and then, you know... Practice some patience."

Fang shrugged. It was worth a shot. He carefully loosened his grip on the bag, letting some of Dylan pour into his cupped palm. He could only hold a portion at a time, so he wrapped the bag back up in his soiled fingers and held the hefty mound of ashes stretched out in front of him.

There wasn't any wind.

Fang waited a whole thirty seconds before turning dubiously to Max.

She shrugged. "Don't look at me. It's the only idea I've got."

A split-second later, a massive gust of wind came billowing across the lake, catching up the dust in Fang's hand with explosive fury.

They yelped in surprise, Max coughing roughly, Fang turning away and trying to blink Dylan Dust out of his eyes.

They poured the rest of the ashes right into the lake.

"Ashes to ashes, dust to river dirt, right?"

It was as good as it was gonna get. Fang rinsed his hands in the lake and tried to slap the dust off his shorts. The lightness from the wake was coursing through him now, buoying his mood and making his lips curl up at the edges. He'd given Dylan as good a goodbye as he knew how to give.

He guessed, now that even Dylan's ashes had been scattered, that he felt light because there was nothing left to do. He could move on.

Max moved on by ripping into three turkey jerky sticks at once.

After they'd both eaten their fill, Fang got up to go stand by the water. The sun had just dipped below the horizon, washing everything in a smoky twilight haze. The lake was a dull dusk blue, lapping quietly at Fang's bare toes and giving him chills.

Max crammed their trash into a plastic shopping bag and swiped her hands across her shorts. She moved quietly to stand next to Fang, arms slack at her sides. "I'm not sure if I want to go swimming anymore. You know, now that Dylan..." She stretched one toe out to dip it in the water, making a squeamish face.

Fang hummed quietly, reaching across for her hand. It was soft and smooth and folded perfectly into his. And everything was all right.

Max angled herself to look up into his face. He smiled at her and looked back up to the darkening sky, watching a cloud of bats take flight from an unseen crack in a distant cliff. Everything out here was so still. Peaceful in a way that made him almost wish he didn't have to go back to civilization at all.

He didn't catch the change in Max's stare until she'd closed the space between them. Her eyes were brighter, more focused, roaming deliberately down his t-shirt-clad chest.

Her fingers stretched out tentatively, tugging at the hem until she had his belly exposed to the chilly air. She traced the puckered scar just above and to the left of his navel. The mark the bullet had left behind. Her index finger circled the round divot where the bullet had actually entered him and then trailed down, down, down along the thin scar from where they'd opened him up on the operating table. It send chills skittering up and down his spine.

Her wide doe eyes flashed up at him and back to the scar, and then she was bending, pressing her lips softly against his skin.

Fang sucked in a heady lungful of air and pulled her up by the shoulders to kiss her himself. All he could think was that he'd never get tired of this. Never get tired of her.

Her hand slid up his body to scritch softly through the stubble on his jaw with her fingernails. He chuckled against her mouth and caught one wrist, then the other when _that_ hand slid delicately down his lower back.

"Max," he murmured into her mouth, warning.

Her lips were relentless.

"Your body's still full of artificial hormones, Max," he sang softly.

"Mmm, so?"

He nudged her away from him, holding her at arm's length by her wrists and smirking sinfully. "So, don't start what we can't finish."

Her eyes flashed angrily. "Seriously? We're gonna be out here all night, all alone, and you're telling me you don't want a piece of this?"

She gestured to all of herself.

He tried to keep looking at her face. He really did. Eyes drifting, he said, "I didn't bring anything, and your bag is full of cereal."

Her defiant stare bore into him.

Something hot flashed between them and Fang stuffed it down with a pained groan, pulling her tight against him and wrestling her into stillness with his arms around her back.

"You're no fun," she blathered against his neck.

"I'm always fun," he said laughingly.

She sighed and he relaxed against her and for a few minutes it was just them and bliss and a million stars overhead on a night so clear that Fang could just see the cloudy swaths of the galaxy shimmering beneath everything.

Max's eyes were drooping happily when she broke the silence, sounding considerably calmer than before. "So how's the boss-hunt going? _National _still puppeted by the sticky strings of corporate while you all run around like headless chickens?"

Fang chose his words carefully. He didn't know how she was going to take his news. "Actually, they just chose a replacement."

"Oh? That's good. Think he'll be better than Marty?"

"Yeah," he said, running one hand down her arm to cup her elbow. "He's been in the office for four years, and two before that as an intern, so he knows the staff and the process really well."

Max made a little conversational hum.

Fang grinned a little, pulse picking up speed. "He wasn't sure if he'd accept when they offered him the promotion, but then he found out he'd be able to spend more time at home. Since it's not a field job, it cuts the travel down to almost nothing."

She hummed again. "That's too bad for him. Traveling is the best part. That's what you love most about being with _National, _isn't it? That you're not stuck behind a desk all day?"

He loosened his grip and looked down at her. "Maybe he's ready to slow things down. Start a family."

He pretended it didn't matter, the way his voice cracked on that last word.

Max got it all at once. She wriggled until his arms draped loosely around her and leaned back, eyes wide, her hands on his shoulders. "Say what?"

He blinked down at her. He had no idea if she was elated or furious. She just looked...shocked.

He fought to keep his eyes on hers. "I was offered the promotion."

"And you took it?"

"Yes." He watched her carefully. She wasn't giving him anything.

"And you won't be traveling anymore?"

"Not more than once or twice a year. For meetings."

At that, her face lit up. "Fang, that's great news! Are you kidding?"

He cracked a nervous smile, elation swelling inside him. "Yeah?"

She was positively glowing. "Yes! Honestly, it sucks when you're not home. Especially now that mom's basically grounded me at work. I don't get to go _anywhere _anymore. She keeps telling me it's just because we're still recovering functionality after the Freeze, but there's nothing left to do besides counting paperclips, and I _know_ Maggie's in Chicago right now, and that's where this big conference that used to be on my calendar is being held." She scoffed, "It's not like I was traveling for a speaking engagement when I got kidnapped. I was sitting on my bed, checking Facebook."

Fang wagged his head back and forth, pulling her tightly to him. "I don't want to leave you alone anymore."

She slipped out of his arms and backed up with narrowed eyes and swaying hips. "Oh, I geddit, Mr. Man. You don't think I'll be safe without you here to protect me, huh?" She looked positively dangerous.

For a second, he froze. And then he saw the silly glint in her eye. She was teasing him.

She was gonna get it.

"That's right," he barked, taking a solid step towards her, fingers spread into grabbing claws. "I'll protect you."

She shrieked and spun around, giggling through her nose and flying ahead on swift feet, just out of reach. He ran after her wildly, tripping over rocks and sticks until he'd caught up with her. He bent to pick her up in one fell swoop, wheeling around to keep from falling and swinging her across his shoulders like a caveman.

"Fang!" she shrieked, laughing and slapping at him lightly. "Fang, put me down!"

He didn't let her slip down his back until he'd brought her all the way back to the campsite. She was still giggling as he twisted carefully, rotating his shoulder with a grimace and absently scanning some jutting rocks for a smooth spot to rub up against.

"I've gotchu, hold on," Max giggled, tugging his hand until he sat. "I've gotchu, baby."

"That's my line," he said with a pained groan, folding his long legs under him, lanky limbs contorting as he peeled his shirt off over his shoulders.

"Mine, too, _honey._" She threw herself down behind him and then her cool hands were on his tight skin, kneading carefully into the tender tissue around his healing wing.

They were quiet long enough for a nearby cricket to start chirping. Fang breathed deeply, Max at his back, eyes roaming the darkening valley. There were lightning bugs deeper in the forest, making lazy spirals in the dark.

The night deepened, velvety black under the crescent moon, and eventually Fang lowered himself onto his sleeping bag where Max curled into his side.

Her whisper was feather-soft. "You doing okay?"

He looked down at her and she gestured loosely towards the little brown box, lying on its side on the smooth boulder nearby, its lid wide open. His gaze slid back into the sky, soaking in the inky blue until the stars tripled.

"Yeah," he breathed. "Yeah. I'm okay."

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**A/N: ****90k+ words later, YOU GUYS IT IS FINISHED WHAT EVEN? ? ?**

Okay. Almost. I've been saying all along that I am going to go back and polish up the whole story in lieu of what I've learned. I meant to do it all before I posted this. HAH. I am only up to chapter 10. If you are one of those crazy (awesome) people who wants to reread the whole thing, can I please convince you to wait until Saturday, when it's _actually_ finished? Kthx.

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**FIVE THINGS I LEARNED WHILE WRITING _OUT OF SIGHT_**

**1) You can write in a vacuum. But it will probably suck.  
**My writing got much better once I started talking about it with people. And reading published fiction. And learning to read other people's fanfiction (or the published fiction) critically. Just having someone else look over your shoulder while you write can do wonders for continuity and focus. Having **KLoves2Read** call me out when something is confusing is invaluable. Having **Nola96** be willing to go along for the ride and then comment, like, _right away_ every time I posted a new chapter helped me gauge whether I was hitting the right emotional notes.

**2) Computers are distracting. Nothing beats paper and a pen.  
**Do you guys even know how much of Out of Sight was written on 5x8 sheets of notebook paper? A lot. Literally at least a third of the story. Plus 90% of the planning that went into it. Writing on my nice desktop computer with the wireless keyboard and high-speed internet access was great for editing, but for writing new content, it's terrible. Because all I end up doing is reading **thestupidgenius1123's** most recent chapter for the third time so that I can craft the perfect chapter review. There's something about an actual pen and a sheet of paper that forces the ideas to flow. When you write on paper, you can't go back and edit the same paragraph ten times in a row. You can't type faster than the words form in your head. You just...write.

**3) Pay attention to point of view. Fang does not have access to Nudge's inner thoughts. Unless he's Angel. (Hint: He isn't.)**  
This was something that the lovely **Lustrex** pointed out for me after I'd already published fifteen chapters. I didn't even realize I was doing it. Sometimes, I really _wanted_ you guys to know what Nudge was thinking about, even though Fang's POV was already established! The challenge when going back to tighten up those moments of accidental omniscience is to communicate those important details through observation and dialogue versus a backstage pass to their innermost thoughts.

**4) Word choice and sentence structure _matter_** **beyond doin' grammar good**_._  
Fight scenes. Fight scenes are fun to write. Fight scenes should also keep a brisk pace, with impactful language and crisp, short sentences. Relationship-building scenes or observational scenes, on the other hand, can function really well with complicated sentence structures and lyrical language. Know the difference, use it to your advantage, let people like **j4bb3rwocky** tell you when you've done it wrong and then _listen._

**5) Writing is awesome and changes everything.**  
I mean, okay, so I wouldn't have even started this if I _didn't_ like writing. Duh. But what I didn't expect was how it's changed the way I look at the world around me. I try harder to pay attention to group conversations when I meet new people, because maybe they have stories or verbal tics that I can file away for later. I realize I'm narrating the looming thunderstorm halfway through the drive home, and then pull out my pocket notebook at the red light to save the words before they evaporate. I'm eager to read more, to talk more, to learn more so that I can craft words with skill instead of just talent. I made friends here on FFN, instead of just posting each week and vanishing to do my own thing, and now I get to benefit from a mutual community of writers who are willing to _push_ each other in order to improve.

**I am so ready to write my next stories, you guys! They are going to be _so much better _because of everything I learned while writing _Out of Sight._**

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**THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU TO ANYONE WHO TOOK THE TIME TO READ AND REVIEW! Your comments and PMs have encouraged me and taught me and seriously, I wouldn't have gotten so much out of writing fanfiction for James Patterson's Maximum Ride without you guys cheering me on. You are all lovely, sweet people, and I'm so blessed that you paid attention to the words I wrote.**

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**FUTURE PROJECTS**

I have plans, you guys. For two more full-length chapter stories (one of them with a sequel, omg, what did I sign up for I don't even). I'm going to get pretty quiet on FFN as far as posting new content goes, for a month or two, as I plan and write and plan and write. I'll be around for PM chats and reviews, and I have a quick-n-dirty project with a friend that will probably show up in the next week or two and get slowly updated, but otherwise you'll just have to hold your horses and sit tight.

Hold on, lemme see if I can dig up some kind of preview material...

**[Unnamed Time-Bending Super Awesome Adventure Fic]**  
AU, set after SOF and before MAX, in which the entire flock gets caught up in time-twisting shenanigans. This is still in the early stages of planning, so much so that I can't tell you anymore and still be certain that I'm not giving away anything important. Just...trust. It'll be awesome.

**Ivory Towers  
**AU/AH Drama-Suspense-Romance future fic, in which Max is a whitecoat and the rest of the flock is the flock. Iggy gets captured and worlds collide, with messy, subplot-driven results. And look, I have a preview! With Fax, sort of!

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Nick swayed on his heels, unblinking, and Max's stomach dropped with preemptive disappointment. She cursed herself mentally for being so blunt. _Girls aren't supposed to ask guys out, Max, the guy likes to ask out the girl. Jeezums, I'm out of practice._

But then the he opened his mouth and it was the best thing anyone had said to her all day.

"Okay."

"Okay?" She grinned from ear to ear and nodded, excited. "Okay. Uh, okay, I can meet you at seven, at the diner across the street? Does that give you enough time to do whatever you need to do?" She bit her lip and thumbed carelessly at her cuticle. It was probably hanging grossly off her finger by this point.

"Okay," he said again, and she could have sworn she saw the corner of his thin, pale lips turn up into something that might have been a warm smile if he followed through.

"See you, then," she said, still grinning, and began to retreat without turning around. She tried to twist her grin into something at least a little bit threatening and pointed at the center of his chest. "And don't you dare stand me up, Nick-the-IT-guy. You won't like me when I'm pissed."

He laughed at that, a soft sort of chuckle in the back of his throat, and she was sure her heart couldn't be any fuller. She spun on her heel, bouncing on her toes and pushing through the front doors. He called 'see you' behind her and she practically did a victory dance right there on the sidewalk, settling for a discreet fist pump in case he was still watching her. She hoped he was.

For the first time in longer than she'd admit, she was excited to take _off_ her lab coat.


End file.
